Beyond All Reasonable Truths
by DrunkOnJerichohol
Summary: Her name, her family, her background - - it was all a lie from the beginning, masterly crafted by those she trusted most. After confronting the truth and setting out to locate her roots, Stephanie ventures into building a relationship with those she was torn away from through kidnapping and deceit, some 19 years prior. (a little AU, a little not)
1. The Life of Jennifer Crandall

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Any and all original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

December 23rd epitomized a day of mourning for the entire McMahon family.

December 23, 1979 was the day they lost their cherished Stephanie.

The anniversary of the date of her disappearance had arrived and brought along with it the heavy hearts of Vince, Linda, and Shane. All they had left of their daughter and sister, respectively, were wrinkly, faded photographs and a dresser drawer stock full of clothing she had worn right up to the point she was snatched so abruptly from their lives. The WWF had pulled through the tragedy as a result of Vince's hard work and determination, but the McMahons were barely etching by as a family unit. There was a gaping hole in their hearts where Stephanie once resided, and they kept the spot open, holding out hope that one day their beloved would return.

Stephanie had only reached the point of three months removed from her third birthday when she was stolen from right under Linda's nose. The Sunday before Christmas '79 had been a major shopping day, and while Linda had purchased all the presents needed for their festive celebration, there were some last minute items she desired in order to complete the household decorations. However, what should have been a simple trip for wrapping paper, tape, and additional Christmas stockings turned into a nightmare she would never be able to live down. Taking her eyes off Stephanie long enough for a criminal, a _monster_, to step in and kidnap her child was a split-second mistake she was paying for with a self-instated life sentence.

A classic Christmas carol, Jingle Bell Rock, floated through the room as it played a soothing melody in the background, and four glasses of warm apple cider occupied a smattering of wisely-placed coasters on each of the oak tables in the den. Shane's vacant stare met the wooden floor as his hand closed loosely around Marissa's. Vince sat at a stiff angle with his arm blanketed over Linda's shoulders, and she leaned into his touch, as if she would crumble to the floor in the absence of his supportive hold. With each year that passed, they were told it would get easier when, in fact, it was the very opposite of that. The more time that escaped them, the less hopeful they persisted as a collective group that Stephanie even remained alive.

"I can't believe it was 19 years ago today," Shane braved the tension in the room by breaking the silence. He reached for his glass and enjoyed a sip of the warm liquid, enjoying the way it slithered down his throat and warmed his whole body in a matter of seconds. Marissa squeezed his hand and he attempted a smile, but a persistent lump had formed in his throat and was distracting him from being as expressive as he might normally have been. "I was only 9 when she was taken, but I still remember so much about her."

"I know you do," Marissa acknowledged.

"She was a good sister," Shane added, nodding his head unconsciously. "She was only a 3-year-old, but she was good."

"I have work to do," Vince rose abruptly from his seat and left Linda longing for comfort, her distraught gaze following him until he disappeared from view. Seconds later, his booming footsteps provided a temporary back beat for the music as his clomping cut through the downstairs section of their house. Vince had loved Stephanie in a special way, quite unique from the other members of his family, and had taken the news especially hard after finding out his little daddy's girl was no longer.

"I should go talk to him," Linda wiped at her eyes, which momentarily welled up until she was able to get a hold of herself. "Help yourselves to the snack platter."

"Thanks, Mom," Shane nodded, though he stared straight through the tray resting in the middle of the table. Linda followed the same path up the stairs Vince had just taken, and when she was gone, Shane rose from the couch to grab a cinnamon-scented candle that had been seeking refuge in a holder atop the table. He used his index finger and thumb to pull the wick up and extended it towards an already lit candle, borrowing its flickering flame to light the one he held. With the task complete, Shane slipped back into his seat beside Marissa and held the newly-lit candle in front of himself with pride. "In honor of Stephanie."

"In honor of Stephanie," Marissa repeated as she wrapped him in a consolatory hug.

A holiday celebration of a very different kind was brightening up the Crandall Family home in Moorhead, Minnesota. The Christmas tree shimmered with decorative lights and thoughtfully strewn garland, and the family dog, Dusty, ambled through the kitchen as her nose sought after the wafting scent of sugar cookies. Her icy blue gaze and sturdy stature made the husky appear intimidating, in a sense, but those who knew her claimed she had all the aggression of a fluffy teddy bear. That wasn't to say Dusty didn't act as the protector of the family, but she was often so determined to cuddle up with everyone that she wasn't as busy as she should have been sniffing out lurking trouble - - not even when it was right under her snooping nose.

While Gregory and Melissa Crandall chatted in the kitchen over a rich cup of coffee as they awaited the completion of the baking cookies, their only child lay sprawled across the couch in the living room with the cordless phone trapped between her right ear and shoulder. Their 22-year-old daughter, Jennifer, was the prize of the family. Not only had she been accepted into her university's nursing program with exceptionally good grades, but she was preparing to graduate from school with honors the following summer. The Christmas break she had returned home to enjoy with her parents was a welcome recess from her studies, and it allowed her to feel like a kid again, even if only for a short while.

"School has been going good, actually," Jennifer flexed her feet and stretched her arms before grabbing the phone in her right hand when it began to slide away from her. She was catching up with an old friend from high school, and it was pleasant to have a tradition as simple as the holidays luring her back to those she had been closest to once upon a time. "I'm actually getting a grasp on this stuff, and I wasn't sure I would at first."

"You're so smart though," Nicki, one of her closest friends from times past, pointed out. "You were always the bookworm of everyone in our group when we were in high school. I always knew you'd be either a nurse, doctor, or rocket scientist. You've got the brain for it."

"You flatter me too much," Jennifer laughed before spying the digital clock across the way and remembering she was supposed to be helping her mother finish the baking before night fell. "Hey, I've gotta go help my mom with the cookies and stuff, but I'll call you back later tonight. Since you're in town for the holidays, we can maybe meet up somewhere."

"That would be cool, give me a call whenever."

"All right, bye, Nicki."

"See ya," she replied. Jennifer hung up the cordless phone and shifted on the couch, placing it back in the charger cradle as she snuck in one more full body stretch. It was with great reluctance she rose from her comfortable spot on the couch and padded towards the kitchen. When a hushed conversation fell upon her ears just as she reached the connecting doorway, Jennifer paused and listened in, her stony blue eyes narrowing at the possibility of her parents keeping some sort of secret from her.

"I can't believe it's been 19 years," her father said.

"I can't either," her mother answered back cautiously, as if she was nervous Jennifer would step into the room at any moment and blow their cover. It begged the question of why they would openly discuss a concern they didn't want her to hear. "I was always so worried we would never have the child we always wanted, but then we got Jennifer. She was meant to be ours from the beginning."

"Do you think she might have had a better life if she stayed where she was?" Greg quizzed.

"No. We've given her everything she needs and more. Nobody could ever provide for her the way we do."

"That's true," Gregory replied before the room fell silent again.

Jennifer reached up and tucked her freshly dyed blond hair behind her ear, gulping deeply. An innate force was telling her she stumbled across her parents conversation for a reason, and the bundle of nerves that came with such a realization washed over her in waves. Her heart drummed out a beat so solid she was experiencing difficulty hearing over its steady rhythm. From what she gathered, her parents were speaking about her being adopted, and it didn't sit well with Jennifer that they would keep a secret like that for so long.

While she loved her parents, Jennifer had felt different for most of her life. She didn't closely resemble any of her family members and felt a constant missing link in her heart, as if there were other people in the world she shared a connection with. Her feelings for her parents wouldn't change if they were to admit an adoption had taken place, so she couldn't understand why they would hide it. There was no shame in adopting a child and, in fact, they should have been applauded for taking on the responsibility if that were the case.

If Jennifer _had_ been adopted, it would answer a ton of questions that plagued her during her short life.

"Don't start doubting yourself now. It's too late for that, Greg," Melissa's voice broke through her haze. "What's done is done, and she's ours now."

"I can't help myself. I always get like this on the anniversary of the day we got her."

"Pipe down, would you?" Melissa responded in a hushed tone. "She'll be back in here any minute, and we don't need her hearing any of this. She's got nursing school and friends to focus on, and I'll be damned if we spill the beans this late in the game. It doesn't matter how we came to be her parents, because I love my daughter."

"I love her too," Greg added.

Jennifer rested her back against the wall, which connected the two rooms, as she attempted to make sense of the result of her eavesdropping. Oftentimes, adoptive parents waited until their children were older to tell them how they came into existence as a part of the family, but at 22 years of age, Jennifer was more than old enough to be in the know. With a quickly multiplying queue of questions lining her mind, the only two options were to question them about it or pretend she hadn't heard anything at all. Against her better judgment, but knowing she couldn't sleep that night without answers, Jennifer stepped into the kitchen.

"Am I adopted?"

"What?" Melissa's face contorted in horror as she regarded Jennifer. Gregory's mouth formed a wide oval as his eyes darted guiltily from Jennifer to Melissa and back again.

"Am I adopted?" Jennifer tried again.

"What would make you ask us something like _that_?" Melissa questioned as she took a casual sip from her mug. She was trying to play it cool, but Jennifer could hear the slight tremble in her voice that betrayed her innermost secrets and thrust her deception on display for all to behold. Something was going on, and she wouldn't stop until she knew exactly what it was.

"You and Dad were just talking about me, I heard it."

"Well then you shouldn't be eavesdropping, should you?" Melissa wiped her hands on her apron and stood from the table. "Come and help with the cookies. They need to be decorated before I start on dinner."

"But you guys were just talking about me."

"Jennifer, that's enough," her mother scolded, sending her an icy stare. "You can either come and help or go up to your room."

"I'm too tired to help, I'll be in my room," was all Jennifer said before she swiveled on her heel and left.

On the way out, she ran her fingertips over Dusty's head, which was about all she had the power to do. Her suspicions were in rapid-fire mode, each of them bouncing off the other before being pushed aside by new formations. Under normal circumstances, the possibility of being adopted wasn't a big deal, but there remained a red flag alert forming in the pit of her stomach that was urging her something wasn't right. She tossed a glance behind herself after reaching the top of the stairs, and when she was sure she wasn't being followed, Jennifer darted down the hallway and into her parents' bedroom.

If they were going to act funny and go silent when she was asking perfectly reasonable questions, she would just have to find the answers alone. Playing detective might be enjoyable, especially if her search turned up nothing and she was simply being paranoid to begin with. Drumming her fingertips on her thigh as she contemplated where to search first, her eyes fell upon the closet. It was an enclosure of the large, walk-in variety, where she knew for a fact her parents kept many important documents, and it made the most sense to begin the search there.

Little did Jennifer know, the answers she was after weren't lurking too far away.

"This is excellent pot roast, Linda," Marissa complimented, as she smiled at her from across the dinner table. In the midst of such a trying day, with solemn thoughts of Stephanie running rampant, she desired to say anything that might lighten the mood a bit. There was also the undeniable fact that the pot roast _did _happen to be insanely delectable.

"Thank you," Linda returned Marissa's kind smile, but the vacant look in her eyes told the story of a heartbroken mother. She was missing her child, and though there had never been solid evidence as to whether Stephanie was dead or alive, the assumption was that she was no longer with them. Most abductors kill their victims within the first 48 hours, and even though nobody in the family said it aloud, the doubt resided in the backs of their minds.

"Pass the potatoes?" Vince requested of Shane. Sighing loudly, he took a stand against the tension and addressed the rather large elephant in the room.

"Can we talk about Stephanie?" Shane asked, not making a move for the bowl Vince was in pursuit of. "I'm so sick of this weight coming down on us every year on the anniversary of the day she went missing. We all obviously miss her, but nobody wants to just come out and say it, and I'm sick of it. I think about my sister all the time and what life would have been like if she had been around growing up. I don't want to have to hold that in just because you guys can't admit your true feelings."

"I see," Vince set his fork down with a clink and folded his hands in front of himself. "You want to talk about Stephanie?"

"That would be nice, yeah," Shane nodded.

Vince lowered his hands and regarded Shane with softened eyes. "Well then," he cleared his throat, "let's talk about her."

She found nothing more than a large shoebox at first glance, but with a little added snooping, Jennifer removed the top to reveal a large stack of documents that led her to believe it was anything but typical. At the top of the pile was her birth certificate and social security card, both boasting her full name - - Jennifer Renee Crandall. Skipping the basics and getting to the goods, she sat Indian-style in the closet and pulled another larger box towards herself. She was in the process of closing it back up after not finding anything of interest, until a stack of newspaper clippings caught her eye.

Feeling guilty for spying on her parents but realizing she was too far in to stop, Jennifer reached inside and pulled the articles out. The top clipping appeared to be from a newspaper in Connecticut, and the headline alerted there was a missing child the local police needed help finding. As she began reading, the information connected with her in a way she didn't entirely understand but gave her a warm feeling inside. Something wasn't adding up and it was her job to fill in the missing blanks, so she continued reading in hopes that something - - _anything - - _would jump out at her.

* * *

_**Police Search For Abducted Child : Girl Was Taken From CT Mall**_

_**December 24, 1979 | By: Michelle Taylor**_

_Police Sunday night searched Greenwich and all surrounding areas in Fairfield County for any sign of a 3-year-old girl abducted from a strip mall. Authorities say the daughter of Vince and Linda McMahon, Stephanie, was brought into the mall by her mother around 6:15 PM local time and was abducted around thirty minutes later._

_Lt. Dustin Spear announced a search party is being formed and will be combing the outdoors later this evening. Both parents are cooperative in the ongoing investigation and will be present during the search. If you have any information about the disappearance of Stephanie Marie McMahon, call the Greenwich Police._

* * *

As Jennifer's blood ran cold and she sorted through multiple articles almost identical to the first, her heart and mind were telling her something wasn't right. A brief conversation between her parents wasn't enough, by itself, to add fuel to her skepticism, but when all the tiny points were added, they grew overwhelming. Her doubt was a build-up of a multitude of suspect behavior from her parents over the years. She leaned back against the shelf as the troubling facts she tried to suppress for so long came flooding to the forefront.

Her parents hadn't been able to produce her birth certificate or social security card until she was 16, and even then, it took an enormous amount of prodding. In addition, they had dyed her hair from dark brown to blond since she was a child - - a _child - - _under the pretenses that it was a fun experiment to see how she would look with hair the same color as theirs. There was also the case that, aside from her artificially blond hair, Jennifer bore not a single resemblance to either of her parents. Beyond that, they had been unable to produce any baby pictures of her until she threatened to question her extended family with regard to it, and even then, she wasn't able to confirm the origins of the images they presented her with. As if that wasn't enough, her parents didn't have her on videotape any earlier than age four or five.

All summed up, it became obvious something was amiss, but Jennifer shoved those feelings down in favor of trusting the only parents she had ever known. It wasn't easy to doubt the people who raised her for so many years, especially not considering she loved them unquestionably. Her parents were all she had ever known and embodied her ideals of safety and comfort, but that didn't mean they couldn't still have their faults. Part of the reason she kept quiet for so many years and didn't require more specific answers of them was because she didn't want to believe they would do anything wrong. They were the lights of her life, and she didn't want them to fade out.

The unspoken nuances Jennifer picked up on over the years, combined with the conversation she had been privy to earlier, were enough to make her suspect she might have a different background than the one her parents had raised her to believe. After replacing the top on the shoe box and sliding it back where she found it, Jennifer brought the articles with her and jogged into her bedroom undetected. It was only after making sure the lock on her door was in place that she took a seat in her rolling computer chair and slid in front of the monitor. Taking a deep, placating breath and placing the articles in her lap, she booted up her desktop PC and brought up a search engine.

There hadn't been a picture of the missing girl included in the article, so she hoped there might be one located somewhere online. Jennifer typed the name of the girl into the box and tapped the enter key, pursing her lips and letting some trapped air out in a whistle while she waited. Jennifer was tapping her foot impatiently against the floor when a scratching sound emanated from the other side of her door, along with a series of high-pitched, whimpering pleas. "I'm coming, Dusty! I'll be right there, sweetie-pie," she called out.

Annoyed with the unimpressive speed at which her computer performed, Jennifer blew a tuft of hair away from her face and began sorting through the stack of papers in her hand to pass the time. The gist of the follow-up articles was that the girl had gone missing and was never found, but it didn't make sense to Jennifer that _her_ parents would hold onto something like that unless it bore some sort of significant meaning. A windy storm was brewing within the confines of her mind, and even as she questioned the situation, her brain was already starting to form the answer, though it was one she didn't approve of. It hurt to think her entire life could have been a lie and that the articles could be, in any way, related to her, but all it took was the final paper at the bottom of the stack to shut her psyche down completely.

Hysteria shot through her body, clutching her lungs in its grasp and squeezing with all its might. A low cry from the back of her throat formed a mixture of a gasp and guffaw. If she would have shuffled through _all_ the papers, Jennifer surely would have noticed it sooner. Included on a small flier of the missing girl, which was crinkling right before her eyes from the pressure with which she held it, was an age-enhanced photo of what the missing girl might look like at her current age, assuming she was still alive. With a photo that was essentially acting as a mirrored image of her own face, Jennifer could only come up with a single explanation as to what she was viewing with her very own eyes.

Her parents had held onto the articles because _she_ was the missing girl from Connecticut.

Her true, given name was not Jennifer Renee Crandall - - it was Stephanie.

Stephanie Marie McMahon.


	2. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The internal battle brewing within the confines of Stephanie's heart was brutal.

The simple response would have been to rush down to her car, drive herself directly to the police station, and use the articles in her possession as evidence to assist in proving her parents were lying kidnappers. Yet, her heart remained conflicted, because she didn't want to be the reason the two people who had raised and loved her over the years ended up behind bars. Aside from the crime she strongly suspected they committed, the people she knew as her parents would hold a special place in her heart for eternity, and she struggled with what action to take. There had been a sense of insufficiency inside of her since childhood, and Stephanie had often felt there was a missing piece of the puzzle in her life, but it was an inclination she hadn't been able to explain in prior years.

Knowing she had an entire family waiting for her somewhere in the vast universe, the only thought she was able to process was that she had to get to them. Whether she drove herself or hopped on a plane and flew cross-country, Stephanie was determined to track them down and make her presence known. At 22 years of age, it was fairly safe to assume her real family believed she was no longer alive, and she hoped showing up would bring them joy, rather than add unneeded turmoil to whatever daily routine they had developed by now. Stephanie stuck an index finger in each ear to block out Dusty's deafening whines from just outside her bedroom door as she concocted a plan.

The assumption that her parents would eventually end up going to jail was a given, but it wasn't a consequence she was fully prepared for, so Stephanie made the decision right then to avoid notifying the police right away. Instead, she would sneak out of the house when night fell and the people she _thought_ she knew as her mother and father were asleep. Making a clean break was important, because if she had to face them with all the questions and underlying anger piling up in her mind, she would have a breakdown, and they would most likely watch her round-the-clock to make sure she didn't bolt. Since the starter plan was to hole herself up in her bedroom for the night and not make contact with them for the rest of the evening, Stephanie went to her door and opened it long enough for Dusty to slip inside.

She relocked the door and sat on the circular rug, where Dusty made herself right at home in her lap. Stephanie hugged up with her and ran a hand over her shiny coat. "Dusty, I'm in _so_ much trouble," she whispered.

As Dusty lay cuddling in her lap, something told Stephanie her trusted pal understood perfectly well.

Night fell upon her Minnesota home quite swiftly, and it couldn't have come a moment sooner. After surviving countless knocks on the door from her parents and rebuffing their offers to join them downstairs for milk and cookies, the time had come to make her move. A simple internet search turned up the identity of her true parents, and while she expected to have a difficult time getting the exact address where they currently resided, she was shocked to find they were a well-known family. They were the owners of the World Wrestling Federation, which was a company who put on weekly professional wrestling shows she had only been a casual fan of while growing up.

It was a given their professional status wouldn't have allowed for them to have their address printed in the white pages, so Stephanie came up with a course of action that would allow her to meet them at their place of work. The address to the WWF's Stamford, Connecticut offices was readily available, and after jotting it down in a notebook, she tossed it into the bag she had already prepared for herself earlier in the evening. Dusty was asleep on the floor, and Stephanie's heart broke when she glanced over, because she knew she would have to leave her beloved pet behind. Her trip was already going to be difficult enough without lugging a dog around everywhere, and she could always return for her later. Dusty would need somebody anyways, after her parents got taken in for questioning, so she could always swoop in for the rescue at a later date.

The car ride from Moorhead to Stamford would take approximately 21 hours, based on the information she had come across online, but with the way Stephanie was feeling, she would step on the pedal with enough force to get her there in 21 minutes. Knowing it wouldn't do her real family any good if she didn't make it to them in one piece was the main source of strength that brought her down from irrationality and reminded her the importance of driving safely. For everybody's sake, especially her own, she needed to play it safe. After enduring 19 years without seeing those she had left behind, an additional 21 hours was going to be a cakewalk.

After picking her travel bag up and tossing the straps over her shoulder, Stephanie blew Dusty a sorrowful kiss, despite the fact that Dusty was asleep and would never detect it, and went to her bedroom door. After pressing her ear against it to make sure no sound was emanating from the other side, she swiped her car keys from the bookshelf and quietly opened her door. She sent only a single backward glance inside her bedroom, because anything more would have sent her into a display of waterworks that would have awoken everyone inside the household. Her natural stealth came in handy as she swooped down the stairs and cut through the kitchen to get to the garage, where her car was waiting.

The garage door made a moderate amount of noise when being raised, so Stephanie had to move swiftly once she pressed the remote control button to open it. She slipped into the driver's seat and tossed her bag in the back so there would be room for her purse in the passenger seat. Having been raised Christian, she brought the index and middle fingers of her right hand up to her mouth and kissed her fingertips before pressing them against her cross necklace, hoping the gesture would bring her great luck during her journey. With a deep breath, Stephanie pressed the garage door button and started her car.

The grand voyage was officially underway.

"She just _had_ to be in my room all the time," Shane laughed at the memory. The McMahon family had enjoyed a hearty dinner and were all seated on the sectional sofa in the living room, as old home movies played across the projection screen in the background. They went down the line and each of them shared a fond memory of Stephanie, save for Marissa, who had little to no recollection of the youngest McMahon. "She would always toddle to my doorway with that teddy bear she constantly held onto."

"Mr. Bear," Linda chuckled. "That's what she named him. Creative, huh?"

"She _was_ only a three-year-old," Vince added, laughing right along with everyone. After his private talk with Linda, he managed to loosen up and realize it was in the best interest of the entire family not to skirt around the issue of missing Stephanie. The more they spoke of her and the memories she left behind, the healthier and closer they would grow as a rejuvenated family unit. "It was so long ago, but I can still picture her jumping on her little trampoline in our backyard like it was yesterday. That was back when we still lived in Cape Cod. Every day, when we finished feeding her lunch, she wanted to be outside on that."

"Such a sweet little angel," Linda fiddled with the straw in her glass of eggnog and pursed her lips. The pain endured from the loss of a child never lessened, no matter how much time passed. Her heart would always hurt for the loss of Stephanie and be filled with questions as to who she would have grown to be. "I just wish I could have been lucky enough to see her grow."

"I figure she would have come to work with us," Vince speculated as he tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. "She would have been a brilliant businesswoman, I'll bet."

Shane mused, "Or maybe she would have shocked us and done something completely different from the rest of the family."

"She could have followed down the path I almost took and gone into the medical field," Linda added, not realizing the full extent of her accuracy in that estimation. "Or maybe she would have been content with the homemaker life. She could have been a young wife and mother like I was."

"Who knows what she would have grown up to be by now, but I'm sure, whatever it was, she would have been great at it," Vince said.

"Yep," Shane agreed, smiling as he glanced around at the roomful of his biggest confidantes and supporters. There was nothing that would ever compare to spending the holidays with his family. The only thing that could come close to topping it would be if Stephanie could have joined them, but Shane knew that wasn't likely to happen.

It would take a miracle for the McMahons to see Stephanie again.

Her first stop of the night was the ATM, but Stephanie didn't make it there without constant rearview mirror checks. She was convinced her parents heard her leaving and would be coming after her any second and ordering her back home. There was a mass of guilt settling in the pit of her stomach because, regardless of what the truth was, Stephanie felt she should have had the decency to allow her parents a chance to explain themselves and state their cases. Of course, that concept went both ways, and they should have had the common courtesy to tell her the truth from the beginning, so it was null and void in the end.

Being that ATM's weren't the safest places to be after dark, Stephanie opted for the drive-up machine and checked her surroundings before pulling forward and taking out everything she had in savings, which was just under $500.00. Her expenses while away at school were considerably low, since her parents had made sure the cost of her schooling was covered. They also sent her money for the apartment she shared with her roommate, so she worked as a cashier at a drug store near campus and saved that money for personal needs, which turned out to come in handy. Venturing out to meet the family she had missed out on, due to an act of immense selfishness, called for a personal emergency, so she had no problem spending any money she might need along the way.

After grabbing her receipt when the machine spit it out and pulling away, she sighed and looked around while stopped at the traffic light. The roads were icy from leftover snow, and she was thankful to have bundled up before leaving home. The thought hadn't occurred to her how dangerous it could be for a single female to be traveling the highways at night, but, suddenly, she felt the urge to wait until morning. It would probably be better to clear her head before she set out on the open road anyway, so when the light turned green, Stephanie drove until she came upon a Denny's restaurant and pulled into the parking lot.

She was greeted by a friendly hostess immediately upon stepping inside and chose a seat at the counter, since she only planned on ordering coffee and a small stack of buttermilk pancakes. Never had there existed a time when she was more thankful to own a cell phone than that precise moment, and Stephanie pulled it out of her jacket pocket and called the one person she could always count on when things were rough. It was getting late, and she didn't want to wake Nicki up if she had gone to sleep already, but it was likely she wouldn't be concerned with sleep when she heard what Stephanie had to say. Making a mental note to speak quietly so nobody in the restaurant would overhear her dilemma, Stephanie slumped down in her seat and waited while it rang.

"Hey, girl, what's up?" Nicki answered, sounding very much alert. There was holiday music playing in the background, and it wasn't until then Stephanie remembered she was supposed to have called her back so they could make plans. From the sounds of it, Nicki had assumed she got caught up in family stuff and ended up going out without her anyway.

"We have to talk. Are you going to be free anytime soon?"

"Uh, well, I'm just hanging out at my friend's house, they're having this little party thing. Just tell me whatever you need to say."

"No, you don't understand, I can't do this over the phone," Stephanie explained, smiling in thanks when the waitress placed a cup of steaming hot coffee in front of her. Stephanie balanced the phone against her shoulder and ear while she reached for a couple cups of cream and some sugar packets that were lining the counter top. "There's something really serious I found out about after I hung up with you earlier, and I need to tell you about it. Actually, if you're free, maybe you could even come on the trip with me."

"Come with you where?" Nicki wondered, but Stephanie didn't register the question, as she was still thinking aloud.

"No, that wouldn't work, because then you would miss Christmas with your family, and that wouldn't be fair to you. Well, maybe you could come with me on the drive there and then fly back in time for the holiday or...I don't really know yet, but we could work something out," she muttered like a madwoman as she explored all her options. She didn't want to get any of her friends tangled in the sticky web of her life, but if ever there were a time when she needed people to depend on, it would be the current moment.

"Would you please just tell me what's going on? You're seriously starting to freak me out a little," Nicki admitted.

"Oh, yeah," Stephanie nodded, Nicki's request snapping her out of the panicked thinking she had been engrossed in. "Sorry, I'm just still in a state of shock, and it's coming through in this conversation, I guess. Like I said, I can't tell you this stuff over the phone, but if you can come meet me, I'm at the Denny's on 13th Avenue. Can you get here soon?"

"I'm coming, I'll be right there."

"Thanks, Nic. I always knew I could count on you."

After sipping down her first cup of coffee, Stephanie got a refill and was about halfway through her pancakes when Nicki entered the establishment. Stephanie breathed an audible sigh of relief and rose from her seat to give her a hug. Nicki detected something was amiss when Stephanie held her longer and tighter than normal and didn't seem to want to let go. "Is everything okay?"

"My life is a mess," Stephanie told her.

"Calm down, Jen."

"That's not my name," she shot back, and a part of her wished she would have had a camera ready to take a snapshot, because the look on Nicki's face was priceless. It wasn't necessarily funny in the moment, when emotions were still so raw, but someday it would be, and Stephanie would have loved to have that image as a reference. Nicki's reaction, however, reminded her to ease into the subject gently, because the last thing she needed was one of her closest friends to think she had gone off the deep end. If everything was explained in an orderly fashion, Nicki would pick up on the acuteness of the situation and offer guidance. "Sorry, I'm just losing it right now. Can you sit down for a minute so we can talk?"

"What do you mean that's not your name?" Nicki asked, still stuck on Stephanie's admission.

"Sit," Stephanie motioned to the empty stool next to her and Nicki, albeit reluctantly, sat down and placed her purse on the counter. "Do you want to order anything to eat or drink? I would have ordered for you, but I didn't know what you would want."

"No, it's okay, I'm fine. What the hell is going on, though?" she asked while unraveling her wool scarf.

Stephanie took a deep breath and leaned in so she wouldn't have to speak too loudly, "I found something out about myself. I'm not the person I thought I was, and my so-called parents aren't who I always thought they were. Be discreet about these, all right?" she added before pulling the newspaper clippings out of her jacket pocket and handing them over.

"What the hell?" she asked, taking the papers and sorting through them. Nicki studied each article for quite some time, reading every detail of the news reports until finally reaching the lone photo. The next time she glanced up, Stephanie saw skepticism knitted in her brow, and it made her regret bringing an outsider into the situation. She should have known even her best friends wouldn't be able to understand what she was going through, and it was a lesson learned to keep her mouth shut the next time anything crazy happened in her life. "This could be about any girl. Are you really going to doubt your own parents just because of some random newspaper articles?"

"They're not random, and if they had nothing to do with me, why would my parents keep these tucked away in a secret shoe box in their closet?" Stephanie questioned, but she was only just getting started. Nicki opened her mouth to respond, but Stephanie cut her off at the pass, barreling into her with a barrage of points. "Why would I overhear them talking about getting me 19 years ago - - not having me, but _getting_ me - - and why would it just so happen that 19 years ago is when this girl was kidnapped? Why, when I overheard this conversation and asked them about it, did they brush it off and tell me to stop eavesdropping instead of explaining themselves? Why would they dye my hair from brown to blond since childhood, and why does my face look _exactly_ like the age-enhanced photo of this girl?"

Stephanie ended her verbal onslaught, nearly out of breath, and watched as Nicki's eyes widened and she went back to scanning the papers in her hands. The next time she looked up, Stephanie found that Nicki's doubt seemed to have been replaced with fear, and while it wasn't the desired emotion, she would take it over uncertainty any day of the week. Nicki's eyes darted around the restaurant suspiciously, as if she was expecting someone to jump out and surprise them at any moment, and when they settled on Stephanie once more, she spoke, "You think you're this girl—Stephanie McMahon?"

"I'm about 99.9% sure I'm her. It would explain everything."

"I'm sorry, I just don't understand. I want to, but I can't."

"What do you need me to explain?"

"I don't know, how about _everything_?"

Stephanie proceeded to supply Nicki with a rundown of the entire evening's events, complete with a set of unanswered questions about her parents suspicious actions that she had held onto in silence for her entire life. Every single thing she had ever wondered about was answered if she accepted the belief that she was Stephanie McMahon, and it was the only thing that made sense to her. There was an entire group of people somewhere in Connecticut, probably mourning her loss when they should have been celebrating her existence, and she hadto reach them. Stephanie made a fairly convincing argument for herself, and by the time she was finished, she had fully converted Nicki into a believer.

"We have to call the police," she said, and Stephanie held her hands up to slow her.

"We can't do that. My parents will get taken in, and I'm not ready for that to happen yet."

"They _should_ be taken in after what they've done. They tore you away from your real family and...I can't...I just can't believe this. It's so hard for me to process."

"Yeah, imagine how I feel," Stephanie pointed out.

"I'm sorry, I'm being so insensitive."

"No, I didn't mean it that way at all. You're always here for me, and you came when I needed you," she reached out to squeeze Nicki's hand. "I know they'll be taken away soon, but I don't want that to happen before I get to meet my real parents. I took the money saved in my account, and I'm driving to Connecticut to meet them. That's where they live, according to the information I found online, and guess who they are?"

"Who?"

"Vince and Linda McMahon. They own the WWF, you know that wrestling show we sometimes watch?"

"Oh, you mean Raw is War, or whatever it is?"

"Yeah."

"So they're in charge of that show?"

"They're in charge of the entire company," Stephanie said, and even in the nearly two decades that she had been away from her family, she already spoke of the company with a naturally ingrained sense of pride. It was as if the WWF had been circulating through her blood since birth. No matter where she resided in the world, she was a McMahon through and through and always would be. "I just want to meet them, but I have to do it in a way that won't completely freak them out. I mean, I can't just walk right in the door and be like, '_hey, I'm your long lost daughter_'."

"How long is the drive to get there?"

"Almost 24 hours."

Nicki frowned and bit her bottom lip, "So, by the time you get there it'll be Christmas Eve? How are you going to get to them on a holiday? Did you get their home address or something?"

"No, I only have the work one."

"They won't be in the office on Christmas Eve. You should just go to the police so they can get you in touch with the family and—"

"It's not 'the' family, it's _my_ family, and I don't care who I have to bulldoze over to be able to get to them. I've had enough of living a lie—it's time to go meet my true parents," Stephanie said, determination blazing in her eyes. "Look, the reason I called you, aside from needing someone to talk to, is because I wanted to see if you could come with me. I only have the work address for now, but I can find a way to get their home address when I get there. I'd really like it if you would come with me, because I don't want to be on the road alone."

"I can't just pick up and leave this close to Christmas, Jennif...I mean, Stephanie," she corrected herself. "Whoa, that was weird."

"It's okay, you're used to calling me Jennifer, so it's fine if you do that for now."

"I want to go with you, but I can't leave my family this close to the holidays and expect them to understand. We have family flying in from Europe, who I never get to see, and they're all expecting me to be there. Can't you wait until a little after Christmas?"

"No, I can't," Stephanie shrugged matter-of-factly. "I can't put off something this serious for a few days. That may seem like nothing to you, but what the hell am I supposed to do? Go home to the people who have been pretending to be my parents for all these years and tell them I'll be leaving in a few days to find my _real_ mom and dad? I have to go, and I've gotta do it now. I hope they haven't noticed I'm gone yet, but I don't think they heard me leave or else they would have called me by now."

"I wish I could go with you, but I just can't make the trip."

"That's fine, it's not your problem, it's mine. I'll call you along the way and give you updates, so keep watch for my calls when you can. I'll be back to visit before long, because I have to come get Dusty when my parents get taken in."

"What about school and your job and apartment?"

"If I click well with my family, I'll finish school in Connecticut and get a side job there. I only have a single semester left before I'll be able to get licensed and work as a nurse anyway. Then I can get my own place out there and see my family as much as I want. When I checked my parents' biographies online, I saw that I have a brother named Shane. I was trying to remember him, but my memory from that age is so foggy, and I don't think I remember being around him."

"Well, I hope things turn out all right. I'm really scared for you, and I just want everything to be okay."

"And it _will_ be okay," Stephanie reached a hand out to squeeze her shoulder. "I'll be fine, but I need you to do me a favor and not tell anyone what we talked about. If anyone asks, especially my parents, don't tell them you saw me or we talked about this, and definitely don't tell them I'm driving to Connecticut. I have to do this on my own."

"So what now?" Nicki quizzed. Stephanie took a deep breath and a final sip from the coffee cup in front of her before supplying the best answer she could muster at the time.

"Now, I hit the road."


	3. To Roam the Roads of Lands Remote

**A/N: **Song lyrics for Bittersweet Symphony belong to The Verve. Also, I would like to thank the reviewers for your kind words. I hope you continue to enjoy this story as it unfolds.

* * *

By the time the first streaks of violet filtered across the morning sky, announcing the gradual rise of the grandiose sun, Stephanie had already stopped off for coffee and gas at a nearby convenience store before merging onto the highway that would eventually lead her to her family. After the Denny's conversation the night before, Nicki insisted Stephanie spend the night at her house, and Stephanie obliged and soaked the time in for all it was worth. She hadn't a single clue when the next opportunity would arise for her to see Nicki, or _anyone_ familiar, so Stephanie expertly etched their final meeting into her brain, wanting to remember every detail, in case she wasn't back as soon as expected. Stephanie slid a jazz cassette into the player and turned the volume dial to increase the sound as she drove down the road.

Music helped to drown out the racing thoughts of skepticism and distress swimming around frantically in her mind. Stephanie believed the precise emotion she entered the situation with was exactly what she would get out of it, meaning her doubt would be met with doubt from others, but she couldn't help but wonder how her family would take the news. If they expected she was murdered by her kidnappers and had been dead for all that time, then her arrival could turn out to be a pleasant shock. However, there was also the distinct possibility they would think her admittance was only the ploy of a skilled scam artist, attempting to play on their vulnerable emotions. With as much trauma as she had been through in the past 12 hours, Stephanie didn't think she was capable of handling a single ounce of rejection.

Other than a smattering of assorted moles, Stephanie couldn't think of any defining marks she had that the McMahons would be able to recognize in helping prove her identity. Her hair remained dyed blond, and if they expected a daughter of theirs to be brunette, her fair-colored mane would only add to their reservations. Stephanie reached up to adjust her rearview mirror and block out the piercing light of a semi-trailer truck, which had eased up behind her with their headlights flooding through her rear window. Groaning and rolling her eyes in annoyance, Stephanie checked her mirrors and roamed into the left lane when a space opened up. She increased her speed to escape the inadvertently annoying trucker and was surprised, so early in the morning, to see her cell phone ring to life.

An anxiety pang rippled through her lower abdomen when she picked the phone up and found her home phone number on the display. One of her parents had apparently discovered her missing, which would undoubtedly be the reason they were calling her so early in the morning, but if she played it cool, they would be none the wiser. There were any number of answers she could supply to stall their suspicions, and she only had to hold them off long enough to get out of the state. Once she made enough distance that they wouldn't be able to catch up with her, it was no longer going to matter whether they figured out she had run off or not.

In the same hand that clutched her phone, Stephanie used her index and middle fingers to turn the radio volume dial down and pressed the answer call button, bringing the phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Jennifer, where in God's name are you?" Melissa's voice came over the line, and she wasn't hiding her irritation one bit. "Your father and I heard you leave last night and thought you were just running to the store, but I just checked your room and you're still not back. Where on earth are you?"

"I spent the night at Nicki's, and I'm still here," Stephanie responded.

"And when are you planning on coming home? We've got food to prep today so we can have almost everything finished by Christmas tomorrow. Your grandma and grandpa are going to be here, and I picked up a beautiful holiday dress from Neiman's that I want you to try on. If you like it, you can wear it on Christmas Day."

"Thanks...Mom," she hesitated, hating the way the word sounded.

Melissa wasn't her mother and, truth be told, she was beginning to have doubts about whether or not Melissa and Gregory ever loved her in the first place. If they truly cared about what was in her best interest, they never would have stolen her away from a family who loved her - - the family she _belonged_ to. Tears pricked at her eyes, and the most difficult element of her heightened awareness after her findings was that she risked the possibility of not having any backers once her trip concluded. If the McMahons decided she was an imposter and sent her away, she couldn't go running back to Minnesota and expect Melissa and Gregory to take her back as their daughter and act like nothing had ever happened.

Stephanie was risking her entire livelihood in order to fix a mistake she wasn't the creator of, and that filled her with an incredible amount of unabashed indignation. Essentially, she was being punished for the horrid mistakes of others and was driving across state lines on her own, all so she could return to a family she never should have been removed from in the first place. It didn't sit well with her to admit it, but at that point, Stephanie hated Melissa and Gregory - - a realization in direct juxtaposition to the love still residing in her heart for the memory of who she thought they had been. She adored them for caring for her and molding her into a productive member of society, but she despised them for robbing her of a life that could have been - - the life that _should_ have been.

"Jennifer, are you still there?" Melissa asked, baffled by the sudden silence. "Hello?"

"Yes, I'm here. I'll be home in a few hours after I get some more sleep, but I have to go now."

"Okay, be safe, darling. I love you."

"Yeah, love you too," Stephanie replied, hanging up the phone and tossing it in the seat opposite her.

Words that had once been so familiar to exchange with her mother had become a chore, and it was a true sign that her old life had met its demise. Nothing could ever bring back the innocence she had lost upon finding out the truth about her identity, but Stephanie was thankful she discovered it at age 22, when she was old and mature enough to handle it responsibly, rather than as a teenager when she might have done something reckless in retaliation. That being said, the trip was still a journey she would have preferred to take with someone she trusted by her side. Stephanie was an adult, but she was still young and needed the support of those who truly cared for her best interests. Right hand remaining on the steering wheel, she raised her left one to wipe a couple of stray tears away and voiced her deepest concern aloud - - words which fell only upon her two ears.

"I'm scared—I don't want to do this alone."

"Mom?" Shane entered the kitchen and strolled up behind Linda, placing each of his hands on her shoulders as she faced the counter and transferred pumpkin pie filling into the awaiting crust on the counter.

"What is it, honey?"

"I was thinking, and if this is a stupid idea we can forget I brought it up, but I think we should add an extra stocking over the fireplace for Stephanie. We can fill it with a bunch of stuff we think she might have liked if she was still here, and then we can go around and everyone can explain why they chose whatever thing they added into the stocking for her."

"I suppose that's a nice idea," Linda humored him, but her intonation displayed her hesitance. Shane, never one to let things slide, had to know why she wasn't as into the idea as he hoped, so he pressed forward.

"You don't want to do it?"

"No, it's not that. I think it could be a nice thing."

"I'm sensing a 'but' at the end of that sentence."

Linda sighed and placed the wooden spoon down before turning to face him. She didn't make direct eye contact and focused, instead, on the refrigerator door to avoid Shane's gaze. He took a side step to bring himself into her line of vision and force her to look at him as she supplied an answer, "If you want to do that for your sister, then I think you should. It's a kind gesture."

"I can tell you don't want me to, though, and I just want to know why," Shane said, scratching his head and backing up a few steps so he could lean against the counter behind him for added support. Marissa entered the room, and he held a hand up to halt her. "Could you give us a sec, babe? I'll come get you when we finish."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry to interrupt," she ducked out of the kitchen sheepishly, and as soon as she was gone, Shane received the answer he had been waiting for.

"I don't want the loss of Stephanie to consume us."

"What do you mean?"

"We've been talking about her for the past 24 hours nonstop, and I'll always love Stephanie and have a very special place in my heart for her, but I don't want the holidays to be such a depressing time," Linda explained, and though he didn't necessarily agree with her, Shane understood the place she was coming from. "I want you and everyone else to feel comfortable mentioning her when you get the urge, but I think we also need to focus on the present as a family and move past the things that hold us back or make us upset."

"Talking about her is like therapy, though," he pointed out. Mentioning his sister always put a bright smile on his face, and there had been numerous times his mood lifted to heights he hadn't imagined he could reach after he pulled out the photo albums, looked over old pictures of Stephanie, and told stories about the moments he remembered with her. Stephanie kept the family going, even in her absence, and remained one of the most powerful influences over his life. His sister earned a spot as something much greater than a relative - - she was his hero.

"I understand that feeling."

"It makes me feel better to remember her and, I know this probably sounds crazy, but sometimes I get this feeling in my heart like she's still out there. I don't have that sense of doom that something bad happened to her and she's long gone. It feels like she's missing but still out there somewhere, and I hope I'll work up enough nerve someday to go look for her," Shane said. His admission was a huge step forward emotionally, because he hadn't shared those thoughts with anyone up until the current point. He had always suspected Stephanie remained somewhere out there, lost and waiting for them to find her, and he wanted to be the one to make the discovery. Even if it was only a pipe dream, it was his duty to search for his sister and bring her back home.

"I'd like to believe that, but I think if she were out there, she would have come back to us by now. I can't imagine she wouldn't have found her way back to us or told someone she was kidnapped after this long."

"She was only three though, so maybe she's out there and doesn't realize she was taken by whoever has her," Shane suggested, but Linda's lips pursed in a display of skepticism, and he sighed. As much as Shane wanted his family to hear him out and be on his side, it didn't look like he possessed the means with which to convince them. "Never mind, we don't have to do the stocking thing. We got to talk about her yesterday during the day and all last night, so I guess that will have to be enough for now. Can I help you with the pie?"

"You most certainly can," Linda smiled.

She released a breath she had unconsciously been holding while speaking to Shane, and for that split second, he felt guilty for bringing Stephanie up. As hurt as he was over losing a sister, his parents felt an explicitly more extreme magnitude of pain in that they had lost a child, and that was the worse kind of pain anyone could endure in their lifetime. Shane's goal for the future was to be more sensitive and not mention Stephanie to the point that it would send either of his parents into a downward spiral. As he scooped the remainder of filling into the pie crust for Linda while she washed her hands, his decision was made.

He would compile a special Christmas stocking for Stephanie in private.

Sometimes a good cry contained magical healing powers, which was true in Stephanie's case. A relieved smile spread across her face as the sweet morning air tossed her hair every which way, courtesy of her rolled down window. Now that the sun had made it presence known and its brilliant light had been cast across the Minnesota sky, Stephanie was in much better spirits and found the freeing beauty in being out on the open road. She traveled down the moderately busy highway in the right lane of traffic as she sang along with the song blaring through her car's speakers.

Stephanie belted out,

"_'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life_

_Try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money then you die"_

A short stream of cars passed her in the fast lane, probably thinking she was crazy when they glanced over to find her singing all by her lonesome, but Stephanie was past the point of caring. Listening to music, and especially singing along with it, was like free therapy for her, and her mood had lifted immensely since her phone conversation with Melissa. Stephanie's grumbling stomach had been calling to her the past several minutes, urging her to pull over for some breakfast, but it was still early and she had a lot of ground to cover. As much as she wanted to kick herself for not getting started on the drive the night before, like she originally planned, she still felt deep down that it had been the safest decision to wait until daylight.

When her stomach roared once more, she made a deal with herself that she would take the next exit and stop off for food, but there was to be no dawdling around. The second the last bite of food landed in her mouth, she was to pay her bill and get back in her car. A nearly 24-hour drive didn't need to turn into an excursion that stretched over several days, and with each stop, she would be setting herself back an addition 30 minutes to an hour. To make matters worse, Gregory and Melissa, both of whom she was gradually pulling away from referring to as her parents, were going to be calling soon to find out why she hadn't returned home, and her explanation would have to be an absolute gem of an excuse.

She hadn't missed a single Christmas with them since they first "got" her, and it would be hugely out of character for her not to show up the day before the holiday. Nicki would be willing to cover for her and possibly make up a story as to why Stephanie was supposedly spending the entire day at her house, but it might not be a tale they would bite on. A calm meal might offer just the amount of respite needed for Stephanie to think up a rational motive for her disappearance, so she pulled off at the exit laid out in front of her and drove herself to the parking lot of a slightly rundown diner. It wouldn't have been her first choice in restaurants, but now wasn't the time to get snooty.

Stephanie pulled into a parking space, turned her car off, and headed for the diner's entrance to enjoy a hearty morning meal.

"They're gone, the articles are gone!" Melissa cried, tearing out of her closet and up to the side of the bed, where Gregory was relaxing on his back, his hands folded underneath his head. Melissa held an empty shoe box in his face and he pushed it away and scowled, thinking his wife had officially lost her mind.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he frowned.

"The articles of Stephanie...or, I mean Jennifer. The articles are gone, she must have found them!" she dropped the shoe box to the floor with a soft plop and stepped around Dusty, who had entered their room to see what all the commotion was about. Melissa waited, hands on her hips, for Gregory to come up with some sort of master plan that would pull them out of the sinkhole they had fallen into, but he offered nothing except several blinks of his eyes. "Stop lying there staring and help me figure out what to do! There's nobody who would take them besides her!"

"You probably just misplaced them," he said, following his words up with a yawn, but Melissa was already scrambling for her shoes, not even bothering to change out of her silk pajamas.

"They've been in that box forever, where they still were as of yesterday, and now they're gone, and it just so happens Jennifer left last night and hasn't come back. We need to go get her from Nicki's house, and we've gotta do it now. For all we know, she could have left and gone to the police about this. She could be at the police station right now!"

"Just calm down and—"

"Get up!" Melissa slung the comforter off of his body in a panic, while Dusty watched from the corner of the room. Rationality was normally one of her strong suits, but when faced with the possibility of losing her daughter, she morphed into a raging lunatic. There was no option except to make it to Jennifer before she either went to the police or, worse, skipped town in search of her real parents. As Gregory sat up in bed and tossed his legs over the side of the mattress, Melissa sank down on top of the covers and began sobbing, speaking through her cries, "Now she knows. Our daughter knows we're liars and she won't want anything to do with us. How am I ever supposed to fix this?"

"Take a breath, sweet pea, we'll think of something," Gregory scooted up to her side and slipped his arm around her shoulders. She welcomed his embrace and leaned into the hold as she wept against his shirt. "Jennifer knows we love her, and she's probably a little panicked, but if we can explain why we did it and how much we love her, she'll come back. We're the only family she knows, and she isn't going to want anyone besides us. _We're_ her real parents, okay? Nobody can ever take our place."

"I just can't believe she found that stuff, I can't believe it," Melissa sniffled and wiped at her eyes. "This is all our fault for talking about her in the kitchen yesterday. She obviously overheard us, and now that I think about it, she never left her room last night. She must have come up here snooping while we were still downstairs and found that box of newspaper articles. How could we let this happen?"

"I don't know," Gregory said, standing from the bed. What hadn't seemed like such a big deal to him at first was growing much more frantic as he thought of all the terrible possibilities as to what Jennifer could have been out doing as a result of finding them out. "We're wasting time, we've gotta go after her. Get your shoes on, I'll get mine, and we'll go pick her up from Nicki's house. We need to have a family day and talk about all this."

"Oh, I'm so upset," Melissa cried, running her hand down the side of her face as she struggled to get her left shoe on her foot. Gregory knelt down in front of her and took both of her trembling hands, pausing until she made eye contact with him before he spoke.

"You need to relax, everything will work out fine," he encouraged. "She told you she's at Nicki's house, so the fact that we know where she's at is a step in the right direction. She didn't run like she could have, so this is a blessing. She's probably just scared and went to stay with her friend because she didn't know what else to do. When we get over there, we'll stay calm, have her come out to breakfast with us, and we'll explain everything."

"You really think that will work?" Melissa asked. She was still uncertain, but a hint of a smile was peeking through her tears at the thought that she might be able to remedy what easily could have turned into quite a disastrous situation. Gregory gave her hands a squeeze and left her with a final statement before crossing the room to grab his shoes and car keys.

"I know it'll work. It just has to."

"Are you here all by yourself?" a waitress approached Stephanie's table with a pen and a small notepad to take her order and gazed down at her with a heaping dose of sympathy. Stephanie could never figure out why the vast majority of people seemed to think nobody could partake in an outing on their own without it turning into some great tragedy. Sure, she would have _preferred_ to have company, especially on a morning like the one she was experiencing, but Stephanie certainly didn't need anyone to hold her hand just to make it through the day. Still, she found positivity in the concern of a stranger and smiled up at her.

"Yes, it's just me, but I'm fine by myself. I'm just stopping in before I drive to my parents' house, a few states over," she explained before shutting her menu and placing it down on the table.

"That sounds like fun, I love road trips," the freckle-cheeked, redheaded woman responded. She wasn't overweight but slightly chubby, and her personality had a care-taking type of feeling to it, as if she were a person who genuinely enjoyed helping others. "So what can I get for you this morning besides coffee, hon?"

"I'll take the combo breakfast, with my eggs scrambled and bacon well done. I'd also like to add a side of french toast with that, if I could."

"Of course, darlin'," she grinned down at her after writing the items onto her pad of paper. "Anything else? Orange juice or some water?"

"I'll take a glass of water, yes. Thank you," Stephanie said as the woman picked her menu up to return it to the stack at the hostess stand.

"You're very welcome, it'll be right out."

Stephanie sat quietly, sipping at her steaming coffee as she observed the people around her: parents out with their children, husbands out with their wives, businessmen conducting meetings over breakfast with associates. Life was going on all around her, rather calmly, while the existence she had known all along was slowly spiraling out of control. Right then, Stephanie made a promise to herself that no matter how her trip turned out, she would resume a sense of normalcy again, and it would be someday soon. She sat back and relaxed, concentrating on building faith in the family she was headed towards, while saying a silent prayer for those she left behind.

Breakfast was shaping up to be a great escape from the turmoil unraveling around her.

Before Gregory had the chance to bring the car to a full stop in Nicki's driveway, Melissa had already tossed her door open and was running to the front porch, blond hair swaying behind her. While she didn't make it a habit to show up at people's houses so early in the morning and risk waking them up, this was an emergency, and her hope was that Nicki and the other occupants of her household would find a way to understand the special circumstances. She rang the doorbell eagerly and shifted from one foot to the other while she waited, extremely impatiently, for an answer. Someone peeked out of the side window and, a second later, a drowsy-looking Nicki was standing at the front door tying her robe at the waist.

"Hi, can you wake Jennifer up and tell her that her father and I need her outside?" Melissa requested. Nicki's eyes widened for only a second before she was able to compose herself and cover. She couldn't give away the whereabouts of her best friend when the people in pursuit of her would only serve to do more harm than good.

"She's not here. She forgot something at school, I think it was a book she needed so she could study, but she drove back to campus to get it," Nicki said. Melissa's eyes narrowed suspiciously as she turned back to find Gregory standing near their car in the driveway, hands shoved in his pockets as he waited on her. It was the first time Melissa noticed that Jennifer's car wasn't in the driveway, which meant she clearly wasn't there, as Nicki had already vouched for. Still, something told her the explanation she had been given was hogwash, so she tried again.

"Listen, Nicki, it's really important that you understand something. Jennifer found out about a family secret last night that she shouldn't have known, and she's trying to get away from her father and I as a result, because she doesn't understand it. I need you to tell me the truth about where she is so we can sit her down and talk all this out," Melissa sent her a pointed look before adding, "I seriously doubt she would drive all the way back to school for a book when she already took her finals. There's nothing for her to be studying during Christmas break."

"I can't help you," Nicki said, growing annoyed. The only reason she wasn't giving the pathetic criminals in front of her a piece of her mind was out of respect for Stephanie, since she requested Nicki not say anything to them about it. If it wasn't for that, she would have gladly told them where they could go, slammed the door in their faces, and called the cops. Since that wasn't a suitable option if she wanted to remain loyal to Stephanie, she stuck to her previous story. "All I can tell you is what she told me, which was that she was driving back to school to get her books. I don't know anything other than that, and I've gotta help my family get things ready for Christmas right now, so there's not much more I can do."

"I know she told you where she was _really_ going, Nicki. Why are you lying to me?"

"I'm not."

"Did she tell you anything about our family while she was over here?" Melissa asked. She wanted to cover her tracks in case Nicki knew the full extent of what Jennifer had discovered. "If she gave you some kind of a story, it's all a bunch of lies and misunderstanding. The reason it sounds so farfetched is because it _is_."

"She didn't tell me anything, I can't help you. I'll see you guys later," Nicki spoke in a chopped tone before shutting the door in Melissa's face.

She growled lowly and stomped towards Gregory, not believing for one second Nicki didn't know where Jennifer was, and she was also wrestling with the fact that Nicki had probably been clued in on Jennifer's findings. That wasn't the type of thing someone would keep from their best friend, and Melissa was almost positive Jennifer had run off to either the police or in search of her parents, and Nicki knew exactly where she was. If Jennifer had gone to the police, Melissa figured they would have come to apprehend her and Gregory by now, but since that hadn't happened, she was inclined to believe Jennifer was on the run, and they had to stop her by any means necessary. Luckily, the car their daughter had taken was in their names, and though they purchased it solely for her to drive, that simple fact could be used in their favor.

"Nicki couldn't tell you anything?" Gregory asked as he leaned against the driver door of the car. Melissa rounded the vehicle to return to her side and rolled her eyes.

"She could have told me, but she chose not to. I'm pretty sure Jennifer is off trying to find her parents, and if we let her get to them, we'll be done for. She has to be stopped right this instant, because if we can get to her, we can find a way to explain this so it won't seem so bad. The thing is, if she had wanted us arrested, she could have made that happen by now, but she hasn't, so that must mean she's willing to reconcile if we reach out to her."

"So how do we do that?" Gregory inquired.

"We have her stopped so she can't finish her little escape. Grab your phone and report her car stolen."


	4. The Raw Material of Drastic Change

Gregory clutched the steering wheel so tightly the blood drained from his knuckles and bleached them of their natural color. Melissa occupied the seat next to him, holding a tissue to her face and blotting her eyes and nose as she tried to make sense of the unpredictable events unfolding on their Christmas Eve Day. Having just gotten off the phone with their local police, the force was already taking serious measures to track down the car Jennifer was driving. Their intentions in reporting the car stolen hadn't stemmed from a devious place, but Gregory was wracked with guilt over how the situation would be handled by the responding officers when they happened upon Jennifer.

"We shouldn't have done that, it was a mistake," Gregory stated as he snuck a glance at his wife before retraining his eyes on the road.

A low moan sounded from the back of Melissa's throat before a flurry of fresh tears trickled down her cheeks, "I don't think we should have either, but it was the only way I could come up with for us to get to her. She could already be hours away by now, but if they can at least find the car and stop her, we'll have a chance to explain. If she makes it to her parents before we get to her, our lives are over. I can't live without my daughter."

"I can't live without her either, which is why I told the cops not to do anything drastic when they find the car, but you never know what they'll do. I just don't want them pulling guns on her."

"If they call to say they tracked her down, we'll just explain to them that we realized our mistake and it was our daughter who took the car. That way we can find out where she is but keep her out of jail at the same time."

"Shit, I didn't even think of that!" Gregory panicked. He brought a hand to his forehead before slamming it down hard on the steering wheel and cursing under his breath. "She'll have a record if we don't explain to them in time what happened. We can't risk them bringing her to jail!"

Melissa outstretched her arm and shushed him, "Quiet down and let me think for a minute! Just focus on driving and I'll come up with something we can do."

"I'm not doing this anymore. Call the police back and tell them we made a mistake," Gregory demanded. "Tell them we thought the car was taken but our daughter just drove up in it. Call them now and tell them."

"We'll come off suspicious if we call them right back to say that. Give it some time, Greg," Melissa directed as she rubbed her temples with the tips of her index and middle fingers. "Just give it some time."

The art of continuous travel wasn't Stephanie's strong suit. After having been on the road for a straight hour after leaving the diner she ate breakfast at, she was already feeling the itch to stop off somewhere for a short break. Her legs cramped and her eyesight diminished when she sat and stared at the road for too long, so at the very least, she felt it would be a good idea to get a drink and walk around for a bit. She could sit outside in the fresh air, clear her head, stretch her legs, and give her eyes a much-needed rest. Yet, it was still in the back of her mind that, at the snail's pace she was moving, there was a good chance it would take her longer than initially planned to reach her parents in Connecticut.

Stephanie thought it odd she was still missing from home and her parents hadn't called to check on her whereabouts, but she expected they thought she was caught up in the festivities at Nicki's place. There wasn't going to be any more than a time window of about an hour or two before they were going to be calling and demanding answers, and Stephanie wanted to have a convincing story to supply. The goal was to make the entire trip as seamless as possible, but it was difficult being so young and having that type of responsibility falling squarely on her shoulders. Even still, Stephanie was determined to make it through. In a year or two's time, she would be looking back fondly on her trip and telling stories about how glad she was to have gone through with it, and she carried that belief with her as she continued down the road.

Determination and bravery were all she had keeping her motivated.

"You gonna tell me what you put in there, or is it a secret?" Marissa sidled up to Shane's bed, in what had been his bedroom during much of his childhood and teen years, and she ran her fingertips gingerly down the side of his cheek. He had just returned from a store run, which wasn't the greatest idea with it being a day before Christmas, but he braved the heavy crowds and picked some things out for Stephanie to place in her stocking. Each item held sentimental value in one way or another, and though he couldn't give it to her in person, Shane was hoping his sister, wherever she was, felt his ongoing support and knew how much she was missed.

Shane clutched the stocking protectively and held it to his abdomen, "It's sort of private, but we can talk about it on Christmas night. I'll open it at the end of the night and show everyone what I got for her."

"I can't wait to find out. I'm sure it's full of things she would have loved."

"Yeah, she would have."

"Honey..." Marissa trailed off when Shane put his head down, and she slipped her right hand onto the back of his neck and began massaging his strained muscles to release the build-up of tension. "I can guess how bad it hurts to lose a sister, and I understand it's still as painful as the day she went, but you have to be strong for her. I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted you or your parents to spend the rest of your lives hurting. She would want you all to be happy."

"I am happy, but it's not right that she isn't here. If it weren't for whatever heartless bastard took her, she would be here right now, and she could be downstairs helping Mom make dinner. She could have even been up here, making fun of the embarrassing CD's in my music collection," he laughed while pointing at his CD case, which sat atop the bed, "or she would be up here bonding with you and talking about girly stuff. She would _be_ here, where she belongs, if whoever did this could have left well enough alone."

"I'm sorry, sweetie, I really am. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but I haven't lost a sibling, so I honestly don't know what it's like. She knows you loved her though, and I'm sure she looks down on you every single day and smiles."

"What?" Shane's head snapped up, a mix of horror and indignation. "What do you mean she looks down on me? She's not dead, all right? She just got taken and doesn't know how to find her way back."

"I'm not trying to hurt you, but they say the highest chances of survival for kidnapping victims are sometime within the first 48 hours. After that, they say chances of escaping are bleak."

"Oh," Shane shot up from the bed, tossing the stocking on the covers, in the spot where he last sat, "so who the hell are '_they_'? Just because '_they_' say my sister can't be alive, there's no way it's possible? I'm just supposed to sit around and accept that she's dead even though nobody has any proof of that?"

"I didn't mean it that way," Marissa stood and attempted to hug him around the waist, but Shane rebuffed her advances and pushed her hands away.

"I guess I shouldn't have even bothered putting this stocking together, since she's already dead anyway, right?"

"Shane, stop it," Marissa scolded, but, alas, the damage had already been done. Shane rushed to the bed, grabbed the stocking, and turned it upside down as he shook each of the items out and they landed in various spots on the bed and floor with a flurry of unceremonious thuds. "What are you doing?"

"Forget it! Stephanie won't ever know I bought her any of this stuff anyways, that's what you said, isn't it? Who cares, all this stuff can go right back to the store it came from!" Shane shouted.

He kicked at the slipshod pile on the floor and swiped his hand across the bed, knocking everything else off of his covers before collapsing into an exhausted heap on the floor. Marissa stood unmoving for a length of time she lost track of, not knowing how to react, but once she was certain Shane was calm, she lowered herself onto the carpet beside him. He was breathing huffily but not saying anything, so she reached out and placed her hand on the small of his back. She expected him to push her away, but when that didn't happen, she slipped her hand underneath his shirt and rubbed in a soothing annular motion, wishing the slight touch of her hand was enough to chase his demons away.

Christmas was on repeat, and every single year, the McMahon family seemed to suffer a little more than they had the last. It was always a trying time to survive, and it pained Marissa to sit back and watch her husband self-destruct each year when it came time to acknowledge they had gone another 365 days without their family member. It was often said that parents suffered the greatest anguish of all when they lost a child, but Marissa could make a persuasive case for the siblings of those lost as well. Shane was struggling equally as much as his parents, if not more, and after years of observing it firsthand, she was interested in checking into some type of family counseling they could attend as a group.

At the very least, attending the sessions would get the entire family talking instead of bottling their feelings up, and no harm could ever come from that. Her hand rose and fell against Shane's back with each of his ragged breaths, and she mulled over the jumbled mass of words in her mind, hoping magic would happen and the right string of phrases would form so she could voice them aloud and bring a cease to his agony. Watching Shane struggle broke her heart in two, because she experienced every bit of emotional torture he went through, and it was gradually becoming more unbearable to withstand. She vowed the next Christmas would be different, and she wouldn't allow Shane or the McMahons to contend with the same heartache they were suffering from that year.

Christmas 1999 would be a complete metamorphosis - - the likes of which they had never seen.

"Shane?" she croaked, her throat having been run dry from stress. "Are you okay, honey?"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled against his bed sheet without looking at her. Marissa didn't need to see his face to detect the sincerity in his apology, so she leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

"It's okay, and I owe you an apology too. I didn't mean what I said, and I should have just kept my big mouth shut. I'm sure you have a special connection with your sister, and if you think she's still out there, I suppose there's a good chance she probably is. What do I know anyway, right?"she asked.

While she wasn't entirely convinced Stephanie remained lost somewhere in the vast universe, Marissa was willing to be encouraging in a way that would lift Shane's spirits. The time for truth could come later, but now was a dire situation in which he craved comfort and, as his wife, it was her duty to offer consolation. Still, after a little over two years of marriage, Shane managed to surprise her in ways she never would have expected, and he reached his hand out and grabbed hers, tugging her against his side. As she fell into him, Shane brought his forehead down on top of hers, leaning in for a warm kiss before pulling away just enough to offer up a response to her question.

"You know enough to help me see all sides of a situation, even when I might not want to hear it."

Marissa closed her eyes as a ghost of a smile played on her lips, "I could have said it in a more kind way, though."

"I could have said what I had to say in a better way too and without throwing things around. I'm sorry for acting like this, babe," Shane admitted. "I have to find a way to move on so this doesn't affect me every single year, but it's difficult to let go of someone who should be here."

"I understand," Marissa nodded, causing their noses to tap into each others. Shane chuckled and brushed his hand down the side of her face. "I want to discuss some things with you about what we can do so Christmastime isn't so difficult for you next year, but for now, I want you to put all your focus on doing one thing."

"What's that?" Shane quizzed.

"Celebrate Stephanie's life. Put all those presents back in her stocking, and we'll go downstairs and hang it up over the fireplace together."

"You really are my best friend, Riss."

"You're mine too, now get to work," she teased, pointing around at the scattered items he needed to retrieve. Shane smiled and went in for another kiss before rising from the floor and grabbing the stocking. As he reached around the room and collected each item, Marissa turned her back, not wanting to focus in on what he bought for Stephanie until he was ready to share it with everyone. To offer him privacy, she stood and shuffled to Shane's bedroom door. "I'll meet you downstairs when you've got the stocking ready."

"You're the best."

"That's what I'm told," she called over her shoulder.

Shane laughed and shook his head as she exited the room and shut the door behind herself.

Gregory and Melissa's vehicle zoomed onto the highway as he merged into the right lane of traffic and began passing anyone in his way. They hadn't a clue where Stephanie was, but it was obvious enough that she was in pursuit of her parents and would have had to take the highway. Although she had gotten a gigantic head start, they were determined to catch her and bring her back home safely. If they were lucky, they would come across her before the police did and could call the bogus search for their "stolen" vehicle off.

There was a 65 MPH speed limit set, but Gregory was pushing almost 15 miles over the assigned speed. There was no possibility of catching Stephanie if he didn't go over by at least a little bit, and when he factored in the possibility that she had lost time by stopping off to eat or use the restroom, his hope that they might actually find her grew immensely. He had been ready to go home and wait on the couch to hear from the police, but Melissa pressed him to put in the extra effort to find Stephanie before anyone else did. She was out there somewhere, and if ever there was a day to put their amateur detective skills into effect, it would have been then.

"Hurry!" Melissa pressured, leaning forward in her seat and touching her right hand to the dash.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Gregory snapped as he glanced down at his speed. "I'm going 85 right now. We'll get ourselves killed if I go any quicker than this!"

"Go around this guy," she pointed at a large pickup truck straight ahead, and Gregory changed lanes when the chance arose and swooped around the bumbling vehicle with ease. His driving skills weren't up to par for weaving in and out of traffic at such a high rate of speed, but he was desperate enough to attempt it. "I'm assuming Jennifer started this drive right after she left last night, so she's probably already hours ahead of us, but if she stops at a motel to sleep, we can probably catch her."

"What about your parents? They were supposed to be flying in today, and nobody's there to pick them up at the airport."

"Dammit!" she slapped her hand against the dash, dust particles rising frantically from the force of the blow, and Gregory slowed his speed and returned to the right lane of traffic in preparation for the next exit to come. It was unrealistic to think they could chase after their daughter and leave all other responsibilities behind, so the only decent decision was to allow the police to track her down and go from there. "What are you doing?"

"We're going back home. We have to be here when it comes time to pick your parents up today, and there's no way we can track Jennifer down right now anyway. I was stupid to think we could," Gregory admitted. "Even if she stops at a motel to sleep for the night, we have no idea which one she would be at, and we'll have to stop at _every_ single exit to check the parking lots and see if her car is there. Do you really think that's something we can pull off?"

"You might be going back home, but I'm not. I'm going to find her, and you should be ashamed to call yourself her father when you're not even willing to look for her. If she gets across state lines, the police in this state will stop looking for her, and we can't have that."

"They can notify the police in the next state to pick it up from there and look for her, but even then, we won't know which one she's in. This is crazy to attempt, and don't insult me about being a father. I love Jennifer just as much as you do, but this is insane. Look at us, Melissa. What we're doing is out of this world!"

"Well, those are the lengths I'm willing to go for her. She's out there somewhere, scared and wanting answers, and we need to be there to explain that we didn't do all this for nothing. The way we got her wasn't the smartest, but we did it out of love and provided her with a damn good life. I just feel bad because she thinks finding her other family is going to help, but they're not going to want her anymore. They don't know anything about her, and they'll probably turn her away right at their front door, if she even makes it that far. She's only setting herself up for a world of hurt, and that's why we have to go after her."

"It's not gonna happen," Gregory shook his head and pointed at a sign announcing the next exit. "I'm going back home. If you want to go search for her, you can, but somebody has to pick your parents up from the airport or they'll know something is wrong. I can tell them one of your friends was in an accident and you went to be with them at the hospital, but one of us has to be there, or else, what will they think?"

"I don't really care what they think!" Melissa broke down for the umpteenth time since she realized her daughter was gone. She seemed to be the only one who recognized the severity of the situation and was willing to fight off all obstacles to reach Jennifer. She wasn't prepared to lose her only child due to a simple misunderstanding and was astounded Gregory didn't feel the same way. "We can call and tell them we both had an emergency and need to be with a friend, but for you to cop-out and go home just because this is hard on us is ridiculous!"

"_You_ were the one who grabbed Stephanie in that store, not me!" he shouted, an uncomfortable hush falling amongst them and dragging on for an extended while. "I didn't want to steal someone else's daughter, but you made that decision, and I went along with it because I saw how much you grew to love her. I knew you wanted a child, and I was willing to risk everything so we could keep Stephanie."

"No, stop calling her that, her name is Jennifer," Melissa corrected, a new flood of tears escaping and rolling down her cheeks. When Gregory tapped on his blinker and merged onto the next exit, she folded like a lawn chair under the pressure and brought her hands to her face, releasing a wretched sob. He slipped his right hand over her thigh, giving it a comforting squeeze.

"I'm very sorry, honey, but you have to know this is the right decision. We'll never find her out there ourselves. We need to let the cops look for her, since they're the ones who know how to track people down. They're trained in this kind of stuff, we're not."

"She's scared and probably crying like I've been all morning, and we're not there to make it better," Melissa wailed. "I should have sat her down for a talk yesterday. As soon as we realized she overheard us, we should have sat her down and explained what happened. She tried to ask about it, but I cut her off, and now look at us. She left because I wouldn't give her any answers, and now I don't know when I'll ever see her again or if I even will."

Gregory turned his hand palm side up on her leg and held it open, "Hold my hand," he requested. Melissa grabbed onto it, and he brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. "I know how bad it hurts, and I feel the same way. We've lost our daughter, but we have faith in God, and we need to remember that he'll lead Stephanie back to us when the time is right."

"Just stop calling her that!" Melissa snapped, tossing his hand aside as he pulled back onto the city streets and began the drive home. "Her name is _Jennifer_, that's what we chose."

"All right then," Gregory sighed, "it's Jennifer."

Their trip home was certain to be laborious, at best - - hellish, at worst.

After having received the phone call of a lifetime, Chris dropped his cordless phone onto the kitchen area counter and slid across the slick, wooden floor of his studio apartment with the help of his striped tube socks. It had only been a little over eight years since he began actively working towards his dream, and after paying his dues wrestling in foreign countries and at children's birthday parties in exchange for hot dogs and orange juice, he had arrived at the big leagues. Up until then, he had performed what he coined his 'Nitro Dance', but the time had come to do the 'Raw Dance' instead. After one of the WWF's booking agents alerted him that Vince wanted to set up a meeting to discuss a possible contract offer, Chris was sitting on top of the world.

His big break had made its grand entrance, and though he was still legally bound by the WCW contract he signed for Bischoff, it was set to run out a short ways into the following year, and instead of re-signing with WCW, Chris was going to meet with Vince and possibly sign with the most successful company in all of sports entertainment. He could barely contain the rushing mass of adrenaline coursing through his veins, and all he could think about was what it would be like to come face-to-face with the patriarch of wrestling, known as Vince McMahon. Chris had met the unnerving man once before, in a brief encounter which could only be described as perplexing, but this time would be different. This time, Vince wanted Chris to work for him, and there was no greater feeling in the world than being scouted by the master of all wrestling promoters.

Chris Jericho was headed to the great domain of the McMahons - - the World Wrestling Federation.


	5. On the Road Again

With a single, innocent trip to the restroom, all was shot to hell.

Stephanie was in the midst of drying her hands with a paper towel - - holed up in the women's restroom at the latest diner she stopped off at for a short break - - when she first made out the gruff voice of a man who clearly meant business. Without sight of him and only having his authoritative tone to go off of, her mind created a vivid picture of what he might look like: stocky frame, a squint-eyed gaze, a pug nose, and thin lips twisted into a scowl whenever he wasn't barking out orders. It wasn't his dominating presence that caught her ear so much as what he was saying, but his words scared her stiff, so she continued to eavesdrop from her side of the restroom door. She remained frozen near the sinks, wide-eyed and flustered as she listened to the mystery man's exchange with a female employee of the restaurant.

"How can I help you?" the employee asked after the man introduced himself as Sheriff Dustin Farmer.

"We have reason to believe a vehicle parked outside your establishment, the tan 1997 Toyota Camry, has been stolen," Sheriff Farmer explained.

Stephanie's knees grew wobbly, nearly buckling underneath her. An exact description of her car had been rattled off by the sheriff, but she couldn't understand how they could think she had stolen it unless...there was _one_ explanation, but she wasn't liking the heavy feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. Her parents may not have been perfect, but one thing she knew was that Gregory and Melissa had always loved her deep down, despite their mistakes. They wouldn't have gone out of their way to do the sheer number of things for her that they had if they didn't actually care.

That was precisely why it didn't make sense to her that they would go so far as to report her car stolen, but she _was _running from them, so there was the definite possibility they felt desperate enough to go to such unreasonable lengths. Stephanie paced the bathroom floor as she gathered her thoughts and formed a plan of action. While the obvious idea would have been to go out and explain herself, the sheriff was there to do a job, which meant he would arrest her first and ask questions later. It didn't matter that her parents had reported her car stolen out of spite or fear, because all the sheriff would hear was that she was in possession of a stolen vehicle.

Stephanie hadn't been in the restaurant for very long at all and, in fact, hadn't even stopped off for food. She only pulled into the place so she could use the restroom in a populated area, because it seemed safer than stopping at a deserted rest area all by herself. That begged the question as to whether or not the sheriff had seen her enter and, if he had, there was no way she could leave the restroom and walk right past him without being apprehended. Thankfully, she had been aware enough to take her purse and cell phone out of the car with her and, be it luck or some other great virtue at work, her gut feeling told her to bring the newspaper articles with her as well, so she still had those in her possession.

"We'll be right outside then," Sheriff Farmer's voice broke through her scattered thoughts. "We're going to stake out and wait for whoever it is to come back to the car. Don't alert the customers to anything, because we don't want the thief to get spooked and slip out."

"I won't," the employee replied.

Stephanie's hands fell victim to an involuntary tremor, and she raised the left one to her forehead and rested it there while she tried to figure out what to do next. From the sounds of the sheriff's statement, they hadn't actually seen her driving the car, but she wasn't going to show her face and take a chance that they might arrest her on the spot. Her eyes trailed to the restroom window, which was actually fairly small, but she didn't see any other option than to squeeze out of it, if she hoped to make a clean escape. She turned towards the restroom door, briefly wondering what kind of trouble she might be in if a woman happened to walk in and see her in the process of ducking out, but, alas, it was a risk she would have to take.

Checking to confirm the presence of the articles and her cell phone, both of which she located successfully, Stephanie zipped her purse up securely and shuffled over to the window. Since the opening was high enough up the wall that it required a boost, she hung her purse over her right shoulder and hoisted herself up on the toilet seat, reaching for the window lock and unlatching it. After she pulled it open, she stuck her purse out first and took a huge leap of faith by dropping it to the unseen ground below. Not wanting to chance going headfirst and landing badly on her neck, she made the decision to stick her left foot out first, sliding upwards so her entire left calf was hanging out the window.

Still fortunate to have not had a run-in with any other customers, Stephanie grabbed onto the top of the stall door, curling her hands around it tightly enough to support her body weight, as she lifted her right foot and put it through the window next to her left one. She wiggled against the metal frame and was out up to her hips, when her heart sank at what she heard next. The light squeak announcing the opening of the restroom door sounded before she heard an inquisitive voice from what sounded like a young girl, "Hey, what are _you_ doing?"

Too shocked to answer and unable to see the girl from her upside-down view, Stephanie calmed her racing heartbeat by telling herself the girl must have been speaking to someone else, but only a couple seconds later, she heard the bathroom door reopen as she stepped out and called for her mother, "Mom, come look! Some lady's climbing out the bathroom window!"

Stephanie's face crumbled in horror as she realized she only had a matter of seconds before someone would alert the sheriff and she would be hauled away. Her future was looking grim unless she could find strength from somewhere deep within and remove herself from harm's way, so with a single boost off of the top of the stall door, she pushed herself the remainder of the way out, but not without scraping her back against the metal ridge as she dropped to the ground below, catching herself on her hands and knees. She quickly dusted her palms off just in time to hear the restroom door open from the inside, so she grabbed her purse and ran. Everything blurred into streaks as she whizzed by the open scenery: trees, bushes, buildings, people.

All Stephanie knew was that she had to get away, and _fast_, before life as she knew it was over. Yet, it felt odd to think that way, when the life she had always known was already torn to shreds. She could have tried to forgive her parents for stealing her away from the life she would have had, but she didn't know how she would come to terms with them going so far as to have her charged with a crime they knew good and well she hadn't actually committed. Shaking her head free of such thoughts, Stephanie concentrated on the patter of her feet, rhythmic and steady, as she placed one foot in front of the other and didn't look back.

Curiosity - - that darn intrusive emotion responsible for killing the proverbial cat - - crept up inside of her until she couldn't ignore it, and she glanced back long enough to see that nobody was trailing her. She was safe, she was free...until someone clutched her in their arms from the front and brought her great escape to a screeching halt. "No!" Stephanie screamed, instinctively struggling against her captor. "Let me go!"

"Hey, take it easy there, miss. Take a deep breath, ma'am," the man instructed, and when she calmed enough to look at him, she found a regular person staring back at her - - not a sheriff waiting to arrest her as she had suspected. Stephanie's thrashing came to a cease as he held her still and smiled kindly, though his eyes were lined with concern. "Do you need some help? Is somebody bothering you?" he asked, glancing behind her to see if anyone was trailing.

"No, I'm just having a bad day, I guess," Stephanie said as she struggled to catch her breath. It seemed like a terrible excuse from the moment the words left her mouth, but it was the best she could muster, considering the circumstances. She was parched and desperate for a drink, so she pulled away from the man and set her sights on the McDonald's restaurant across the parking lot. "Thank you for checking on me, but I've gotta go."

"Wait a second," the man chased after her. She continued towards her destination, unwilling to let anything stop her, but he followed close behind. She glanced back long enough to see that he was a muscular man, probably fairly close to her age, with close-cut hair and army pants. She sensed he wanted to take initiative in the situation, and his clothing and behavior made it reasonably easy to conclude he was in the military. Though Stephanie didn't mean to be rude, she had to call Nicki before she lots all her wits and went scampering back home like a child, so she was eager to get away from him. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Listen, I really just want to go get a drink. I appreciate your help, but can you please stop following me?"

"My name is Matt," he supplied, adding, "Matthew Culper. I'm on my way to basic training for the Army, but if you're in trouble, I can help."

Stephanie paused in the street, taking care to remain out of the flow of traffic, and turned to him. "Why would you want to help me?"

"You just look frazzled and, uh, you were running from someone or something, so I assumed you needed help."

"I do, actually," Stephanie replied. Her car was off-limits for obvious reasons, which would leave her stranded unless she accepted help from someone. Matthew's generous offer presented the perfect opportunity to have someone get her away from the general vicinity the sheriffs were combing through in search of their "suspect", and it would bring her one step closer to her true home. "Do you know if there are any bus stations near here?"

"I think so. I can always ask around at one of the businesses."

"I really need to get to Connecticut, so if there's one around, I'd appreciate it if you could drive me there."

"That wouldn't be a problem at all, ma'am."

"Don't call me that. I'm only 22, and it makes me feel oddly old," she teased.

"I'm sorry," Matthew chuckled, "it's just how I was always taught to speak growing up in a military family. That's how I address everyone."

"I'm only joking. If I go and get a drink from McDonald's, would you be okay with driving me where I need to go after?"

"Sure, I'll walk over with you so I can get directions," he replied. They crossed the street together and trekked the remainder of the way in silence. Stephanie dared to look back in the direction she had come from, as dusk was rapidly approaching, and found three cop cars parked at an angle in the restaurant parking lot. Time was running out to get away, so she had to be quick about getting her drink and leaving.

Stephanie may have been down, but she was certainly not out.

Christmas Eve just wasn't the same without their daughter, and Gregory sat next to Melissa in silence as the television droned on in the background. Having picked Melissa's parents up from the airport, they had guests to entertain, but their home was sorely lacking in holiday cheer. Not wanting anyone to know anything was amiss, Gregory and Melissa made the decision not to get into the specifics of what was going on and told them Jennifer was missing because one of her best friends had been in an accident and she had gone to be with them. It was difficult for Melissa to come to terms with lying directly to her parents' faces, but it was a necessary evil if she didn't want to risk ruining their Christmas.

For the most part, Melissa's mother and father were unaffected as they sat laughing at the Christmas programming playing on the TV while they enjoyed the cookie platter and milk in front of them. She saw it as a golden opportunity to excuse herself and check up on the situation, so she cleared her throat and announced, "Mom, Dad—Gregory and I will be back in just a minute. We've got some Christmas plans for Jennifer to discuss, since she couldn't be here tonight."

Her parents waved her off with barely a single glance, so Melissa grabbed Gregory's hand and practically dragged him into the kitchen. The latest update they had gotten was that Jennifer's car was found, but there was nobody inside. The vehicle had been located across state lines, near I-90 E, and was only a matter of several miles away from the Indiana border. That information told them Jennifer had driven much farther away than they would have liked, and they could infer she had been headed to Connecticut, but the most difficult part to cope with was why they hadn't found her inside the vehicle.

"So?" Gregory shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the counter. "Did they call you again?"

"No, but I think I'm going to call them," Melissa said. The police department had been keeping in close contact with her by phone and providing updates as soon as they came in, but she hadn't heard from them in a while and was growing restless. "The latest update was the one I told you. They found Jennifer's car, but she wasn't in it. They did say it was in front of a restaurant though, so I'm hoping she just went inside to eat, and when she comes back out, they'll be able to stop her."

"You better tell them not to use force, and, actually, we should be gearing up to tell them this was all a mistake. We want them to hold her, but not actually take her into the jail and book her," Gregory said, the panic rising in his voice.

"I know that, but we need to let this play out for now. I want to be sure they actually catch her before we do anything."

"I don't like this one bit," Gregory announced as he shook his head.

"And you think I do? I hate that we've lost Jennifer, but she's out there somewhere scared, and it's our job to bring her back home and explain why we did what we did. She needs love and reassurance, so when we get her back, you can't yell or insult her for what she's done. We need to make sure she knows we're not angry, but that we know what's going on and want to have our chance to explain."

"You're assuming we'll get her back at all," Gregory argued. "They found the car empty, so how do we know she didn't spot the cops and run? That means now, instead of being in a car and driving all by herself, she could be running on foot in the middle of nowhere. This thing just gets worse by the second."

"Well, of course it's going to keep getting worse if you have that attitude," Melissa frowned. "If you're just going to be negative the entire time, then I don't even want you in here with me. I'm calling to see if they've found out anything more, and if you don't want to be a part of this and would rather sit around pouting instead of trying to help me, then you can go in the other room with my parents to do that. Take your pick," she folded her arms and tapped her foot against the floor while sending him a pointed stare.

"You're out of control, Melissa. We can only keep up this charade for so long before it's going to come crumbling down around us. You're just not being realistic if you think Jennifer's going to be brought back home and everything will go back to the way it used to be. She's been changed by this, and I don't even need to see or talk to her to know that. She'll never look at us the same way again."

"All right, I see you've made your choice. Please leave me alone so I can make my phone call."

"This won't end well," Gregory mumbled as he turned around and crossed the kitchen. Just before he left, he repeated to Melissa, "Mark my words, this won't end well—not at all."

Stephanie sipped Diet Coke through her straw, and when she pulled it away from her mouth, she absently traced her finger along the golden arch decorating the outside of the cup. As much of a disaster as the past hour had been, she was sitting pretty, enjoying her drink while her unlikely new friend brought her where she needed to go. The manager of the McDonald's had been able to direct him to the closest bus station, and the plan was for Stephanie to purchase a ticket and not leave the bus she was assigned to until she was on Connecticut soil - - more specifically, Stamford, Connecticut soil. It would undoubtedly be Christmas, probably late evening, by the time she arrived, and Stephanie wasn't sure how she felt about crashing her family's holiday.

Even though she belonged to them, it almost felt a tad intrusive to drop in as if she owned the place. They would have numerous questions and doubts, and she didn't want to put a damper on their Christmas if she didn't have to, but she couldn't see any other choice. There was still the issue of finding their actual house when she arrived in their home state, but her plan was to get a cab and request a ride to Titan Towers so she could snoop around. She hoped, despite it being a major holiday, there would be some employees filtering in and out of the building throughout the day or evening, who she might be able to stop and question about the McMahons.

It seemed like a long shot, even as she went over it in her head, but there wasn't much else she could do. There was little information about Vince and Linda's personal lives online, and she certainly wasn't going to find their home address on any website, no matter how hard she dug around for it. The high level of privacy they had attained was frustrating to her at the current moment, but she would be thankful for it in the near future, when her story inevitably made the news and brought the TV crews running in. The biggest fear she contended with was not how she would arrive at their house, but whether she would face cold, hard rejection after she got there.

Perhaps the McMahons would think she was lying and wasn't their real daughter, although, in the pictures she had seen of Vince and Linda, she bore a striking resemblance to both of them. There was also the even more terrifying possibility they might believe she was truly a part of their family but wouldn't want anything to do with her because she had been gone for so long. Not all families were immediately accepting of outsiders, and though she shared their DNA, that's essentially what she was. She hadn't been raised McMahon, and nothing she could ever do or say would be able to change that rather depressing fact.

"You're awfully quiet," Matthew noted. Stephanie broke her gaze away from the darkened sky and smiled at him.

"Sorry, I'm just doing a lot of thinking."

"Is something weighing heavily on you?"

"A little, yeah," Stephanie replied, although her words could have qualified as the understatement of the year.

"Does it have anything to do with the person you were running from? Is somebody trying to hurt you?" he asked, a look of concern befalling his handsome features. Matthew seemed to be a real ladies' man and, had the situation not been so dire, Stephanie probably would have been much more flirtatious with him. He had a certain air about him that made her feel safe from all harm, and it wasn't every day she found that in a man, or any person at all.

"No, it's not that. I'm just on a road trip to get to my family, and I can't wait to get home," she said, testing the way it felt to speak the word 'family' with regard to the McMahons. Home was now a place different from that which she had known for her entire life, and it felt odd to acknowledge that, but it also felt exciting to know she would finally discover her roots.

"I know how that is. I'll be away from my family for 9 weeks while I go to basic training, so I understand that feeling. You sure you're gonna be okay on a bus by yourself?"

"I'll be fine. I just need to get settled and once the bus gets going, I'll be able to relax again. Thank you so much for all you've done so far. If it weren't for you, I would have been stranded back there, and I'd probably still be stuck inside that McDonald's right now," Stephanie said. _Or even worse, jail._

"It's not a problem, I'm more than happy to help," Matthew said.

"I've been traveling since way earlier this morning, and I'm getting really tired. Is it okay if I try to sleep while you drive to the bus station?"

"Oh, of course, and if you need a blanket, I've got a clean one in the backseat."

"Thank you so much, you're a godsend," Stephanie praised.

"Like I said, I'm happy to do this," Matthew responded. Stephanie reached into the backseat and retrieved the blanket he directed her to, draping it over her body until she was comfortable and warm. She leaned her head back against the headrest and shut her eyes while the radio played on low volume in the background.

On the road again - - oh yes, she was on the road again.


	6. A Skip, a Hop, and a Jump Away

Stephanie was awoken with a start on Christmas morning.

She couldn't ascertain whether it was the jostling from the bus ride or the shrill ring of her cell phone, but one or the other was responsible for stealing her away from a restful sleep. In a drowsy haze, Stephanie reached into her purse and fumbled around for her phone, producing it within a few seconds and finding Melissa's number on the display, announcing her as the caller. A cold splash of water would have sufficed to shock her straight into a state of full wakefulness, but receiving such a phone call so early in the morning did the job even better. After a brief internal struggle as to whether or not she wanted to answer, Stephanie took the call, figuring she had nothing left to lose.

The urge to rise to her own defense was strong, so Stephanie began the call with the most appropriate sentiments she could think to express, "You guys left me no choice."

"Jennifer?" Melissa gasped, shocked she had actually answered. She had already made up her mind before she pressed the call button that her daughter would ignore any and all communications from her but was dumbfounded to find she was incorrect. The first step in reconciliation had been for her to make the initial contact and, from there on out, all she had to do was convince Jennifer to lend her an ear so she could explain everything else away. If she had to toss out the occasional fib, Melissa was more than willing to do that, because it would mean the difference between living a desolate life of loss, or bringing her daughter back home, where she belonged.

"My name is Stephanie," she answered, anger creeping into her voice. Finding out about her real family the way she had was heart-wrenching, but it wasn't going to feel any better if all Gregory and Melissa did was make excuses for their actions. Stephanie couldn't forgive someone who wasn't willing to own up to what they had done, so until she heard the words she expected of the people she'd thought were her parents, nothing was going to change. Then again, even if they _did_ manage to offer up an acceptable apology, it wouldn't negate the fact that she wasn't actually their daughter.

"I know that's what you think, but you're terribly mistaken, Jenny."

"Don't call me that!" Stephanie hissed, clenching her teeth and sinking down further into her seat. "I know who I am—you left enough information behind that I was able to figure it out. The next time you kidnap a child, you might not want to leave the evidence in a shoe box in your closet. At least make it a little more difficult to find."

"You may be miles away, but I'm still your mother, and I won't let you speak to me this way," Melissa scolded. Had she been more aware of the toll Stephanie's discovery had taken on her, Melissa might have been smart enough to know that her response was not the way to go if she expected to make any sort of progress.

Stephanie scoffed, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of the situation, "That's just it, _Melissa_, you're not my mother. Vince and Linda McMahon are my parents, but I'm thinking you probably already know that. I'll show you basic respect, because that's who I am as a person, but I will _not_ sit back and let you feed me more lies and try to pass them off as truths. I deserve better than what I've gotten from you and Gregory, and that's why I'm trying to fix this myself."

"How? By running away? You really think those people are going to accept you into their home when you show up on their doorstep?" Melissa asked. She knew good and well she was hitting Stephanie where it hurt, but if she could blow her confidence enough to make her call the entire trip off, that would be a point in her favor and put her one step closer to fixing the problem. "The McMahons may be nice people, but they're not the ones who took care of you. They didn't fix your meals, tuck you into bed, sing you lullabies, read you books, or comfort you during your first break-up. They didn't show up to your high school graduation or see you off to college. That was me and your father who did all those things, and don't you forget it."

Stephanie's clenched fist rattled against her leg, a poor attempt at containing her inner rage, as she replied, "My parents didn't miss out on those things by choice. They missed out on them because you stole me, so how can you possibly think that could be held against them?"

"You're not giving me a chance to explain, and before I do that, do you mind telling me why the police didn't find you inside your car?"

"Do you mind telling me why you sent the police after me in the first place, without even trying to call me first to reconcile?" Stephanie countered. It could have been the paranoia inside her, but she felt as if she was receiving sidelong glances from the other occupants of the bus, and it was beginning to put her on edge. She lowered in her seat even more and raised her legs so that her knees rested on the back of the seat in front of her, not wanting to attract any more attention with her off-the-wall phone conversation.

"Would it have mattered?" Melissa asked, though Stephanie couldn't tell whether the question was genuine or rhetorical. "You wouldn't have come back anyway, would you?"

"No."

"Then why bother?"

"You didn't know that though, and if you ever loved me, I would think you would rather get in touch with me than call the cops and try to have me arrested," Stephanie pointed out. "I was inside a business when they pulled up and saw the car, and they came into the place looking for the person who supposedly stole it, so I snuck out of a bathroom window. Do you know how much trouble an arrest could have been for me? Plus, it would have looked terrible on my record with the profession I'm trying to go into. Do you even care about me at all?"

A soft gasp sounded from Melissa's end of the line, followed by a deafening block of silence. Stephanie briefly pulled the phone away from her ear to make certain she hadn't dropped the call, but the timer was still counting the seconds of their conversation. She must have hit a soft spot on Melissa's and, while that wasn't her particular goal, it felt good to stick it too her, even if only a little bit. Or, it _had_ felt good, until she made out the muffled sound of Melissa's crying before hearing shuffling on the line.

"Jennifer?" Gregory's strong voice came over the line before he thought better of his greeting and corrected himself. "I'm sorry, I meant to say Stephanie."

"So you admit it?" Stephanie inquired, though she wasn't sure why. She had known all along, but something about hearing it straight from the proverbial horse's mouth made the facts more concrete and set it in stone that she had a major problem on her hands that needed addressing as soon as possible. "I'm Stephanie McMahon?"

"We've always loved you, so please don't think we didn't," Gregory responded. He took a pause and a deep breath, and then Stephanie heard light cooing, in what she assumed was his attempt to make a distraught Melissa feel better. "Your mother...or, I mean, Melissa wants me to tell you she loves you, but, you know, we both do. We didn't make the right choice now _or_ 19 years ago, but we didn't do this with the intent to hurt you. You've always been the most important person in our lives."

"It's nice to hear you say that, but you don't carry on lies this big with people you love and let it stretch out for years on end," Stephanie said. "I trusted both of you, and you completely let me down. I don't know how I can ever face you again, but I suppose I will at some point. I just wish you would have thought more about what was best for me than what you wanted for yourselves, because the best choice would have been to leave me with my family—my _real_ family."

"I know that now, but I'm sterile, and it was making our chances of having a baby impossible back then," Gregory admitted. "Doctors couldn't figure out what was causing it or how we could have a baby, and Melissa wanted a little girl so badly. She's had the name Jennifer picked out since she was a teenager and always dreamed she would have a beautiful daughter she could give that name to. This wasn't done to hurt you, it was done because we wanted to give you an incredible life."

"You call this incredible?" Stephanie gestured around herself, although she wasn't sure why, since they obviously couldn't see her surroundings. It was then she reminded herself not to give away too much information as to her current whereabouts. She was most likely far enough away that Gregory and Melissa couldn't catch up to her now, but she didn't know that for sure and wasn't going to chance it. "I'm running on empty, like a chicken with their head cut off, all so I can find my real parents. Your heart may have been in the right place, but you still should have known right from wrong. I can't believe I'm having a discussion like this with people who should have known so much better. Who are the real adults here?"

"I understand you're angry."

"Yeah, you don't even know the half of it."

"Your mother and I figure you're already pretty much there by now, but we want to ask if you would be willing to even consider coming back home," Gregory offered, and she couldn't suppress the guffaw that escaped her. Whether they thought she was incredible naïve or foolishly stupid, neither option was too great of a compliment in the scheme of things. "As long as you're so far away, there's nothing that we can do to help you, but if you come back, we can at least try to mend what's been broken."

"There's nothing to fix. My entire life was a lie, and nothing anyone does will be able to give me back the years I lost with my family, so you and Melissa might as well not even bother," she stated coldly. Stephanie was kindhearted by nature, so it wasn't easy to put her foot down, but she had to stop her life from descending any more into madness than it already had. Just because her surroundings were chaotic didn't mean she had to fall victim to them.

"We're still your parents."

"No, you're not," Stephanie shot back, "and you never were. I'm safe now, no thanks to either of you, and I have to go. I suppose we'll talk later at some point, but I can't deal with this when I'm already under so much stress. Bye, Greg."

"Stephanie, wait a—"

That was as far as Gregory made it before she ended the call and rose in her seat. The sun winked at her through the thick film of trees lining the highway, as if it was the universe's own special way of offering encouragement and assuring her she was doing the right thing. Sleep was now out of the question, because once she was wide awake, she couldn't easily fall back into a restful state. Instead, she trained her eyes directly out of the bus window and kept her gaze focused on the beaming sunlight filtering through the brush, which was the only offer of hope she had received in hours.

It was only a matter of time before she reached her ultimate destination.

Vince crept down the stairs after making a cunning exit from his shared bedroom with Linda. Being that there were no children in the household, none of the adults had been awoken at dawn that Christmas morning by persistent kids begging for everyone to rise so they could open their presents. While Vince was certain the time for that would come when Shane and Marissa decided to provide them with grandchildren, he was relieved to have another year without that type of responsibility resting upon his conscience. His family might be saddened to awake and find him gone on such a major holiday, but it would only be a momentary absence so he could slip unannounced into the office and get some work done.

Christmas morning brought along with it deeply embedded memories of Stephanie, and it wasn't that he didn't want her to live on forever in his mind, but it was a sorrowful time. When he found himself thrust into a world of pain, Vince protected his feelings by throwing himself into work, because it held a familiarity that instantly made him feel at ease. Regardless of what was going on in his life, if he could put his focus on making his company a better one with each passing year, it would serve two purposes - - taking his mind off his greatest loss in life, and furthering his accomplishments in the sports entertainment industry. So he slithered into the kitchen, slipped his car keys off the metal ring, and crossed through the garage to get to his awaiting vehicle.

The office was certain to offer the silent refuge he sought after, considering every employee of his was given the day off during every major holiday. They could enjoy their break with family and friends, and he would have the added benefit of spending some much-needed alone time at Titan Towers. His hope was to return home refreshed and invigorated, so he could fill the roles of husband, father, and father-in-law without anyone ever taking notice anything had been amiss to begin with. After 19 years, there was no reason he should be allowing the joy of such a wondrous holiday to be hampered, and he was going to start using the loss of Stephanie for positivity, rather than allowing it to bring his family down each year.

The final thought Vince had before turning his key in the ignition was that the time had arrived for him to turn over a new leaf.

The fresh, sun-kissed snow that had fallen that day turned into a magical Christmas night, and Stephanie nearly cried in delight after her bus pulled into the station in the early evening hours. She was finally in Connecticut, right where she belonged, and since she hadn't spoken to Nicki since their conversation earlier that afternoon, the first thing she did was pull her phone out. After waiting for the other people on the bus to file off, Stephanie grabbed her belongings and followed behind them, finding a bench to plop down on before dialing Nicki's number. She felt accomplished to have reached her destination and, though she wouldn't have preferred the bumps in the road she stumbled upon along the way, it had all been worth it in the end.

She was hopeful about meeting her family before Christmas ended, as there were only about five hours left until midnight. The bus had been running a tad behind what it was scheduled for, but her thoughts were interrupted when Nicki answered the phone, anxiety present in her intonation as she interrogated, "Hey, where are you? Did you make it there?"

"I'm here," Stephanie beamed, her smile wide enough to light up the drab appearance of the bus station. She pulled her coat tighter around herself when a particularly cold chill swept across her, but she couldn't have cared less what the weather was like. The focus had shifted from concern about getting to the right city to finding out the exact address of her family's residence. "I just got in, and I'm seriously so happy right now. I honestly felt like I wasn't going to make it at one point, but I'm so glad everything worked out."

"Are Greg and Melissa threatening you about going back home anymore?" Nicki asked. Stephanie had told her the details of their phone call earlier that day, and Nicki had been on the defensive about it ever since. As Stephanie's friend, her goal was to make sure she was protected, so she was willing to do just about anything Stephanie asked if it would make her time spent in Connecticut easier.

"They weren't really threatening me in the first place," Stephanie corrected. "They were actually really apologetic, and I feel kind of bad, because I was a little mean, but I'm just so frustrated with them. I still love 'em and stuff, but I need time to sort out my feelings and know exactly what I want to do about this situation. I might not even call the cops on them once I find my parents."

"Yeah, but you can't just waltz into your family's house and tell them you were taken by someone and then go on living happily ever after," Nicki pointed out. She was an outsider looking in, so she had the power to be objective and see the situation for what it was from all sides of the equation, which made her opinion all the more valid. "They're going to want to know who took you, and even if you don't want to have a personal hand in calling the police on Greg and Melissa, I'm sure your real parents are going to. There's no way they would let something that drastic slide."

"I guess you're right, I'm just not thinking clearly."

"It's okay, I understand. I'm so happy you made it where you were going. I was so worried about you."

"I was freaking out too, but, yeah, I just hope my real parents will be accepting of me. If they turn me away at their door, I honestly have no clue what I'll do, other than falling apart. I just want them to love me."

"They_ will _love you, you're their daughter. None of this was your fault, and they would have to be crazy not to know that."

"I know, but I just get nervous is all."

"Well don't, you'll be fine. Where are you right now?"

Stephanie glanced around and realized the area was growing deserted, as people hitched rides with loved ones who had been waiting on them. It didn't seem particularly safe to be sitting around by herself, especially not when it was in the process of growing even darker, so she gathered her belongings and stood. "I'm at the bus station, but I'll call you back in a little, all right? There aren't many people around, and it's a little creepy, so I want to call a cab so I can get going."

"Call me back right after you call for the cab so I can at least be on the phone with you and make sure you're okay."

"I will. I'll talk to you in just a bit, and thanks for being here for me through all of this, Nicki. I couldn't have done it without you."

"That's what friends are for. Bye."

"Bye," Stephanie concluded the call before dialing information from her phone to have them connect her with a taxi company.

She wasn't certain where the driver would bring her, since she didn't have an address to supply them with, but she was hoping they might bite if she told them she was a member of the highly esteemed McMahon family and needed a ride to their home. It was worth a shot and, if nothing else, she could request a ride to Titan Towers and see if anyone was there to guide her. The probability of anyone being around that late on Christmas evening was scarce, but she was grasping at any straws she could get a hold of, because meeting her family would be worth the trouble. After exchanging her information with the agent at the taxi company following a brief wait while her call was transferred to them, Stephanie went to the front of the bus station and stood next to her belongings.

She was put at ease by the few people lingering about, but knew she would feel more comfortable in a lit place, preferably some sort of business where she could have a seat while she waited. Then again, she had already told the cab to meet her in front of the bus stop, so she sucked it up and pulled out her phone to call Nicki back. "Hey, I just called for a cab," she explained after her friend picked up the call.

"Are you sure you don't want me to call the cops now and tell them what's going on?" Nicki questioned. "I feel partially responsible for this whole situation being so messed up, because I know about it and am sitting here not doing anything. I really think I need to call them so they can pick Greg and Melissa up before they run. What do you say?"

"Not yet, Nic, please," Stephanie begged. "You've been so good about doing everything I've asked of you up until this point, so please just work with me here. I'll make sure the cops get called when the time is right, but for now, I need you to trust my judgment."

"Are you still at the bus station?"

"Yeah, just waiting on the cab. I have a feeling things will turn out well tonight, but I'm going to need a lot of luck. This isn't just going to fall into my lap."

"Well, good luck, and just remember that I'm rooting for you."

"Thanks," Stephanie smiled, one of her first real smiles of the day. She carried on her conversation with Nicki, catching her up on the latest details of her trip, and it was with great relief that a cab pulled up to the curb less than 10 minutes later. Keeping her friend on the phone, as it eased her level of panic and brought her a strong sense of camaraderie, Stephanie carried her bags to the vehicle and climbed into the backseat, shutting the door behind herself. After she asked Nicki to hold, the cab driver turned around and requested the address Stephanie needed to be driven to. "I'm trying to get to my family, but I don't have the exact address. Do you know where the owner of the WWF, Vince McMahon, lives?"

"Uh...no," the driver answered after squinting in concentration. He was an older male with a stubbly chin, blockish nose, and a baseball cap pulled over what appeared to be brown wisps of hair trapped underneath. "I can't say that I do."

"I'm new in town, so I don't have any exact addresses, but do you at least know where the WWF headquarters are? I believe they're called Titan Towers, and it's here in Stamford."

"I've passed that place on the highway before, but it's Christmas evening, ma'am. Nobody's going to be there at this time of night on a holiday."

"I understand, but I've got an emergency and would really like it if you could bring me there."

After a moment of hesitance, her driver faced forward once more, "Whatever you want, ma'am."

"Thanks," Stephanie responded before bringing the phone back up to her ear, where Nicki was anxiously awaiting her return. "I'm going to Titan, Nic."

"Nobody will be there," Nicki said, and Stephanie felt like she might actually break into an ear-piercing scream if one more person told her that, as if she wasn't smart enough to figure it out on her own.

She knew the chances of anyone being around when she arrived were slim, and it would be unnerving to have her cab driver drop her off in the dark, alone in a place she wasn't familiar with by any means, but it was a necessary evil. Besides, the strong-willed McMahon blood running through her veins was hard at work, and she had already formed a clear, yet slightly reckless, plan in her mind to have Titan swarming with people, including her long lost family, in only a matter of minutes if nobody was around when she arrived. Nicki was obviously concerned for her, as a genuine friend would be, so Stephanie wanted to make it a point to put her fears to rest. The night would be a success, because she wasn't going to give up until she accomplished the goals she had set out for, so Stephanie left her with a few words of encouragement.

"I'm going to see my family tonight. No ifs, ands, or buts, I _will_ make sure I see them."


	7. Just an Illusion

Her rapid exhales matched the frenzied thumps of her heart in its chamber and were only a couple of the plentiful signs of her exertion. The cab she previously occupied had driven away and left her in solitude no more than five minutes ago, and it hadn't taken much of an internal fight before Stephanie drew a clear conclusion about what had to be done. The parking lot pavement had become a temporary tabletop for her purse and its contents, as she placed the item down and lugged a large, decorative rock that had been lining the building, where the landscape cut off and met the unoccupied woods. Only, it wasn't simply a rock, yet it also wasn't large enough to fall into the boulder category.

The chunk of stone was hefty enough that it would do moderate to severe damage if used as a projectile, and Stephanie's hope was that the breaking glass would set off alarms in and around the building. Titan Towers was the McMahon family's most prized accomplishment, aside from actually owning such a large corporation in itself and, even on Christmas night, Stephanie anticipated they would pile into their car and come first thing when word got back to them that there had been a break-in at Titan. She paused a while, breathing huffily as she swiped several droplets of sweat from her brow that even the briskly cold weather hadn't been able to prevent. Stephanie reached a hand up awkwardly behind herself and attempted to massage away a sharp pain in her back, which she assumed had come from straining her muscles in the process of finding a decent missile to use.

She bit her bottom lip while gazing into the patchy darkness and soaked in the silence of the night, knowing it was the last stretch of quiet she would hear for a long time. Her life was going to be as noisy and raucous as possible from there on out, which was fine, because it would mean she would return to her rightful place within the family she belonged in. When her thoughts began straying to Gregory and Melissa and how heartbroken they would be that she had truly left them for good, Stephanie immediately turned her attention back to hoisting the weighty rock in her arms. If she thought too hard about who and what she was leaving behind, she would lose her nerve.

"On the count of three," she whispered to herself, swaying her body lightly with the rock as she prepared to toss it straight through the glass window enclosing her family's corporate offices. She hoped they would forgive her for the destructive act against their property, but something told her a cracked window would be the least of their concerns when they realized who she was and what had brought her. "One, two...two and a half...two and three quarters..._three_!" she yelled, flinging the rock with enough power that it slammed directly through the front window, the power of the blow resonating in waves, to the point that surrounding glass collapsed and shattered to the ground.

The sudden security breach set off a howling alarm system as red lights began flashing on and off all around the building and, had she not been so terrified, Stephanie would have squealed with glee over having committed the act that would ultimately beckon her family. It would also bring the police, who she would have to remain hidden from if she didn't want to be arrested before her family arrived. Scooping up her purse and all other evidence of having been near, Stephanie retreated in the nearby woods, finding a large cluster of bushes to seek refuge behind as she waited for the real action to begin. Her stomach twisted in knots as she hugged her jacket more closely around her body and prepared to lie in wait for the sea of responders to begin pouring in.

In a matter of minutes, she was set to meet the family members she had been stolen away from a lengthy 19 years prior.

Thoughtfully decorated Christmas cookies and warm glasses of apple cider had been Melissa's ammunition of choice in keeping her parents distracted all day long. Having supplied a semi-solid excuse as to why Jennifer hadn't shown up for the holidays, she was running out of options to stave off trouble for much longer. It was clear after Melissa's brief conversation with Jennifer that morning that she wasn't coming back, and it would only be a matter of time before the police were knocking on her door, wanting to bring her and Gregory down to the precinct for questioning. Though technically a criminal, Melissa considered herself on a whole different level from the mostly vicious beings to be found in jail, and she'd sooner skip the country altogether than resolve herself to a fate filled with jail cells and public humiliation.

Taking Jennifer hadn't been within her rights, but she hadn't done it to torture her or refuse her the simple pleasures in life. She had done it out of the desperation of wanting a little girl to call her own, and she'd always done right by Jennifer, whether her daughter wanted to believe that any longer or not. Yet, Jennifer _wasn't_ truly her daughter, not anymore, and Melissa was still so mentally drained and damaged by the thought of losing her that she hadn't been able to bring herself to call her by her actual name. If she referred to her as Stephanie, it meant she was relinquishing ownership of her to the McMahons, and she wasn't ready to let her go — not now, or ever.

Dusk had fallen upon their small Minnesota town, and her parents were in the beginning stages of nodding off. Their older age worked to her advantage, because they were no longer as aware or sharp as they might have been in the past, and it gave Melissa another chance to sneak off to the other room with Gregory and plan their fate. Melissa took a seat at the kitchen table and Dusty strayed over, plopping her head in her lap, as if intuition alone signaled Melissa needed a friend. Melissa smiled sadly at her beloved pet, swiping her hand gently over the top of Dusty's head as Gregory stood anxiously behind the kitchen counter, taking long sips from a can of beer.

"We can't stay here. It would be stupid to stick around if we don't want to be caught. We already know what's coming," Melissa started, tears glazing her eyes as she bit down on her bottom lip to keep from actually crying. Jennifer would always be her daughter, regardless of the obstacles that stood in the way of their relationship. Melissa couldn't easily, if at all, drop someone she had formed an attached emotional bond with over a course of several years and her hope was that, in time, Jennifer might be able to return to her and realize, regardless of blood relation or lack thereof, Melissa _was_ indeed her mother.

"There's nowhere to go and, quite frankly, I'm sick of running."

"What do you mean?"

"How could I _not_ be making myself clear enough?" Gregory asked, his voice growing louder with each dose of frustration radiating through him. "Ever since we got Stephanie, we've been running from the law, hoping nobody would recognize her face and turn us in. We've dyed her hair and changed her name, and while I'll be the first to admit we had a hell of a good time parenting her, we didn't live through one day without looking over our shoulders at least once."

"It was worth it to have the daughter I always wanted," Melissa replied. "She grew up to be beautiful, smart, sweet, and every bit as great as I always knew she would be. I won't stop loving her just because she wants nothing to do with me anymore. No matter what, Jennifer is still my baby girl, and I'll always have her in my heart."

"I understand that, but I'm not running from this anymore. If the cops want to come and talk, they can do that, and I'll have to deal with whatever consequences stem from that. I'm done escaping responsibility for the part I played in kidnapping an innocent little girl."

"We're not kidnappers!" Melissa gasped, bringing her hand to her chest as Dusty peered up at the sudden loss of contact to her head.

"You may not like hearing that word, but that's exactly what we are. We took her from a store, and we can't hold it against her that she wants out and went to go find her real family. Hell, if I were in her place, I'd be out doing the same thing!"

"Keep your voice down," she hissed.

"I don't care anymore," Gregory extended his hands, crossing from behind the counter into the center of the kitchen. "I don't care who hears, because I'm done with this. If the cops come and ask if we kidnapped her, I'm telling them we did. I don't have the patience or the desire to keep this going any longer than it already has. I want Stephanie to respect me enough to be able to speak to me again someday, and that won't happen if I can't even take responsibility for my part in this. We abducted her, Melissa! Make peace with it and deal with the consequences that come."

Melissa's heart hollowed when she realized the only ally she had, had finally seen the error of his ways and drifted a distance from her. Gregory wasn't the man from 19 years ago who helped her in deciding on which child to lure away from their parents, and he was no longer the man who gave her suggestions on what color to dye their kidnapped child's hair or what to name her. He had left the dark side, and it now felt darker than ever, because she had nobody to rally her on and assure her that life would resume its calmness once the storm passed. Gregory was the first person willing to tell her they no longer had the comfort of hiding behind a wall of excuses for what they had done, and it was a stab wound to her gut to hear it aloud for the first time.

"I'm nothing without her. I lived for my daughter, and I have nothing if she's not in my life and isn't planning on coming back," Melissa stated, devoid of almost any emotion. Gregory took another sip of his beer and wiped the leftover remnants away from his mouth with the back of his hand before wiping that sloppily against his pants.

"Well, that's the reality, so take a big whiff," he shrugged.

Dusty made way for Melissa as she rose wordlessly from her chair, slipping a glass of cider off the table and downing the remainder of the liquid before carrying the glass out of the room with her. Gregory sighed and ran a hand over his face, knowing he had been more harsh with her than was necessary. There were other, more polite ways to drive his point home than to make her feel bad in the process, and that was the inspiration that lead him out of the room and carried him up the stairs, following the silent trail she left in her wake. When Gregory entered their upstairs bedroom, the bathroom light was the only illumination glowing from underneath the crack at the bottom of the door.

He turned the light on in the main room and went to the bathroom door, resting his back against the security of the wood, as he called through the divider, "I'm sorry for what I said down there, sweetheart. I stand behind the point I was making, but I should have been nicer to you and said it in a better way."

There were several seconds of silence and, in thinking Melissa was ignoring him, Gregory went to have a seat on the bed. He was in the process of lying back on the mattress when her defeated response cut through the air, "You were only telling the truth. Our lives are over, and the sooner I accept it, the better."

"No, they're not over," he corrected, lifting up on the palms of his hands. "We just have to own up to what we did and take our punishment. Then we can start rebuilding. For all we know, Stephanie won't even press charges against us."

"I can't do it anymore, Greg. It's over," Melissa said. He couldn't help but notice the finality not only in her words, but her tone, and the next sound emanating from her side of the door was enough to send a shiver down his spine and make every hair on his body stand at attention. The glass Melissa had carried up with her shattered against the tiled floor, and after he heard what sounded like Melissa sorting through the leftover fragments — all the while ignoring his pleas to open the door — he realized what he was up against.

Melissa was planning on bringing her pain to an end.

A permanent one.

The extreme dazzle of police car lights just wasn't impressive the way it was in action movies. Stephanie sat huddled in the security of the bushes, clamping her hand over her mouth in paranoia that the cops standing yards away might be able to hear her breathing and find her. She lost track of how long it had been since she broke the glass in the front window of Titan Towers, but whatever the duration that lapsed, it had been lengthy enough time to give the cops a chance to respond to the alarm, which was still whistling into the night and serving as a major distraction. If Stephanie hadn't been so sidetracked with thoughts of her family showing up, she might have been annoyed enough to show herself and demand they cut the darn thing off.

As police surveyed the lot and began taking pictures of the damage, Stephanie lost hope her family was coming. A long enough while had passed that they should have been there by now, but it was ignorant for her to think they would stop what they were doing on Christmas evening just to come check on a building they had more than enough money to have repaired by morning. Of _course_ the cops would be the ones to show up in their places, assess the damage, write up a report, and deliver the information to the McMahons in the morning. Her one great idea had blown up right in her own face, and she was as defeated as she'd been in a long time, as she let out a low moan and dropped onto her bottom in a patch of partially frozen grass.

Had Stephanie been a crier, she would have turned the waterworks on that instant, but she prided herself on being stronger than to succumb to common emotion, so she held it together and inwardly planned her next course of action. She could try hitchhiking once the cops left, to see if anyone would take pity on her and allow her to spend a night on their couch. All she needed was a few hours of sleep to gather herself before she could set off the next morning in search of her family once more. With her luck, it wouldn't be until the end of the holiday, when normal business hours resumed, that she would be able to see them at Titan. Even then, reaching the McMahons was only half the battle.

The bulk of her responsibility would rely in convincing them she was exactly who she claimed to be and, while her possession of the news clippings regarding her kidnappings would help, there was still the obstacle of showing tangible proof of her relation to them. She hardly had time to consider exactly what that meant before another car door was slamming shut and a booming voice was demanding to know what was going on. It wasn't until she was able to make out the conversation that Stephanie realized someone had finally put an end to the terribly deafening yelp of the security alarms. She lifted up to a kneeling position, peeking over the coverage of the plants as she watched the newest person on the scene saunter up to the building, seeking a flashlight from one of the cops as he assessed the damage.

The men in uniform had slipped inside long before to make sure the perpetrator wasn't anywhere in the building and had deemed it safe mere minutes after their initial arrival. This new man, however, wasn't a cop, and had arrived in a dark SUV that was carrying at least three other occupants, all of whom had vacated the car and were coming up behind him. There was no denying or mistaking who they were, as their interest in what happened could only mean one thing. If they weren't cops, they had to be the only other people who would be so personally invested in the act of vandalism that had been committed against the building — they were the McMahons.

The gamut of emotions she had been put through during the past 48 hours came out in the form of a strangled cry — some odd mixture of a gasp, guffaw, and a wretched sob, all fusing together to form a single sound. Her long-lost family was only footsteps away from her, the parents and brother she had always wanted to know but never had, and she couldn't take even a second longer of being away from them. Though the situation was a tad tricky because she had to be able to get around the cops to reach them, the fighter in her didn't much care any longer. Picking up her purse and tossing it over her shoulder and making sure her phone and the news clippings were still tucked away neatly inside, Stephanie left the safety of her hiding place.

Her sneakers slapped loudly against the slick pavement of the parking lot as she sprinted towards her parents.

Christmas couldn't have come sooner for Chris, as he was long overdue for a visit to his father's house anyway. They rarely got to see each other during the year, between all the traveling and work appearances Chris was required to make throughout the United States and beyond, so he always made the extra effort to spend any and all holidays with family. He had gone to visit his cousins earlier, but when they all decided to bust out the hard alcohol, Chris passed on it so he could be home with his dad and they could catch up on all they had missed out on in each other's lives for the past few months. They were in the middle of discussing one of Chris's recent wrestling matches, while a rerun of the Christmas parade from earlier that day played in the background, until the shrill ring of Chris's cell phone sliced through the air and interrupted their thoughts.

"Sorry, Dad, hold on one quick sec," Chris requested. He grabbed his phone and picked it up after the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hey, bro, turn on the news right now. You're not gonna believe this shit!" Dean Malenko said, sounding as frantic as he ever heard him. Chris diligently picked up the remote and did as was told, but just as he suspected, nothing noteworthy was taking place on their news channels. Considering Dean was still in the United States, he was viewing news that wasn't being projected to Canada, so Chris was left in the dark.

"I just turned it to the news, but I'm up in Winnipeg right now, so I can't see what you're seeing down there in the States. What's going on?" Chris wondered, his voice hitching on the final syllable. Whatever it was must have been a big enough deal for Dean to feel the need to call him in the middle of holiday, and especially so late into the evening, so it was unlikely to be good news.

"You know the back story about Vince McMahon and his daughter, right?"

"Uh, I've overheard some guys talk about it, but I don't know the details. His daughter went missing when she was really little, right?"

"Yeah, she did, but there's some crazy stuff going down tonight."

"Shit, man, what happened?" Chris asked for a second time.

Dean took a deep breath and rushed into it, "There was a break-in at Titan Towers tonight, so all the cops swarmed the place, and the McMahons showed up when they were contacted by the police about it. I guess they went to see how bad the damage was."

"Hold on, when was this?" Chris cut in.

"Like, just a little bit ago. It was maybe about 30 minutes ago that the McMahons showed up, according to the news. Anyways, supposedly this girl comes running up on the scene and claims she's Vince's and Linda's kidnapped daughter from years ago. It's all over the news, and they're saying she's in police custody for questioning. The word is the McMahons followed her in their car to the police station, so they must think she's the real deal if they're taking the time to be bothered with it."

"Holy shit, dude, I don't even know what to say," Chris covered his mouth, feeling his father's eyes boring into his side profile as he tried to figure out what was going on. While he didn't care to be selfish, Chris's first thought was about the meeting he was supposed to be having with Vince about a job with the company. He didn't want it to be canceled in light of the events of that evening, but then he had to stop himself and realize he was being a self-centered jackass for worrying about his job instead of realizing Vince had much bigger fish to fry. "Where did the girl come from?"

"That's what they don't know. The police are reviewing surveillance tapes from the cameras trained outside Titan tonight, but they say she just came running up out of nowhere. This is one of the craziest things that's ever happened, and, I mean, we don't even normally get attention from the mainstream media in the wrestling world, but _every_ news station is picking up on this. It's the breaking news story on, like, every channel there is," Dean explained. "When were you s'pposed to be meeting with Vince? I forgot."

"In like a week's time, but don't go spreading that around all over the place. I don't want Bischoff to know about it unless Vince actually signs me," Chris said before adding, "but now I don't know if Vince is even going to be able to honor our meeting. He might have to move it to a later date if this turns out to really be his missing daughter."

"We'll see, but, yeah, this stuff is insane. I'm gonna go watch some more of the news, but I'll keep you posted if you want me to. Just stay by your phone, and I'll call with updates as they come."

"I'd actually like it if you did that since I can't see the news from here. Thanks, man."

"You're welcome. We'll talk soon."

"We will. See ya," Chris said, ending the call and placing his phone back down on the table. For at least a full minute after hanging up, he sat in a trance-like daze on the couch until Ted reached over and patted his leg, asking what was wrong. "You'll never believe this, Dad."

"Try me," Ted challenged.

"You know how Vince McMahon's daughter went missing years back and has pretty much been presumed dead?"

"Yeah, I vaguely remember hearing about her."

"Well, Dean just called and said they think they found the girl. It's all over the news, and he says she was taken to the police station to be questioned and the McMahons are going with her. We think there's a good chance it's actually her, since Vince probably wouldn't bother going to the police station if he knew she was a fraud."

"That sounds pretty out-there. How did the McMahons even come upon this girl?"

"I guess Titan Towers was broken into, from what Dean told me, so maybe she broke in and they found her that way...but, no, that doesn't make sense, because he said she ran up on the scene out of nowhere," Chris frowned as he attempted to sort through his jumbled thoughts. "I guess I don't really know, exactly, but whatever she had to say must have been serious if it was convincing enough for the McMahons to believe her."

"How old is she now? It's been a long time since she was taken, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Chris squinted off in the distance as he mulled over his father's question. "I think she's roughly my age, but I'm not too positive. If I had to guess, I would say she's in her early or mid twenties by now, but I seriously don't know. The only information I've ever heard on what happened to her always came through the grapevine, when I overheard the other guys discussing it."

"Let's hope it's her, at least for the sake of the McMahons. I can't imagine how painful it would be for them to get their hopes up only to find out it's some crazy imposter or something," Ted responded.

"Yeah, I know. Hopefully it's really her."

Back in Stamford, Stephanie was settled in the backseat of a police cruiser as she was driven to a nearby police station so she could give an accurate account of her harrowing escape. In another vehicle, pacing them several feet from behind, Linda sat weeping into her hands, Shane reaching up from the backseat to clasp her shoulder as a signal to remind her they were all in it together. Vince drove in silence, saying a silent prayer the young woman who had run to him so desperately only minutes before was the daughter he had been hoping would return for years on end. Several states over in Minnesota, Gregory was crying tears of a very different kind, as he comforted Melissa's parents while she was loaded into the back of the ambulance parked in front of their home.

December 25, 1998 had been a day doomed to end in tragedy.

Still, even the darkest of clouds had their silver lining.


	8. Through the Rise, and Through the Fall

All eyes were on her.

Stephanie brought a shaky hand up to the glass of water on the table in front of her and tried to raise it to her lips but had to set it back down for fear she would drop it altogether. There had already been enough shattered glass for one evening, and she didn't want to be the cause of any more. The police had taken her to an interview room near the back of the station, and she had seen enough of the inner operations of the average precinct on television to know what they were all about. The surrounding windows facing her were pitch-black, but see-through from the opposing side, and she would have bet her last dime the McMahon family was gathered on the other side of it, studying her like a hawk.

Every once in a while, she got the eerie sensation that came along with having multiple sets of eyes on her, piercing through her epidermis like laser beams. Naturally, her family wanted answers after she had thrust herself directly into their unsuspecting lives, and she couldn't blame them for being curious. They didn't want to risk being fooled by a calculating fraud, and while she understood any bit of hesitance they may have harbored, every one of the McMahons had been more receptive to her initial claims than she ever could have foreseen. It was actually the policemen who had to pry her away and subdue her in their vehicle, because Vince, Linda, and especially Shane were holding on tightly and hadn't wanted to let her go.

A man who had already identified himself as Captain Branson of the Stamford Police Department was trying his hardest to maintain his gruff exterior, which was normally needed to be successful at his job, but Stephanie detected the sympathy in his gaze. He cleared his throat, nodding at her water glass as if to encourage her to take the sip she tried for earlier. Stephanie shook her head, silently letting him know she was fine for the time being, and he took that as a signal to begin his first line of questioning. He pressed a button on a tape recorder in front of him, and when the red light came on to confirm the recording was in progress, Captain Branson leaned back in his padded chair and folded his arms across his bulging midsection.

"State your name and age for the record please, ma'am," he requested.

"My real name is Stephanie McMahon, but I was raised as Jennifer Crandall, and I'm 22 years old."

"Thank you, Stephanie. It's late, and I want to get through with this just as much as you probably do, so I'll keep this as brief as possible. Can you tell us what happened tonight that led you to Titan Towers?"

Stephanie glanced up at the tinted windows, knowing her real family was on the other side observing, but she quickly cast her eyes downward, feeling self-conscious at the thought of being watched. "Well..." she began, voice cracking under the pressure, "it's a really long story."

"That's okay, we've got time," Captain Branson motioned around his immediate area before sending her a charming smile, hidden away just below his thick mustache.

"Um, well, I lived in Minnesota with my parents, or...the people I _thought _were my parents all my life. I..." Stephanie paused again, gripping emotion overcoming her as she teared up. It hurt to feel alone when all she needed was someone to give her a hug or sit next to her and whisper in her ear that things would be all right. Captain Branson reached across the table for an open box of tissues and slid them to Stephanie, who pulled a couple out and thanked him softly before dabbing at her damp eyes and cheeks.

"Take your time. You don't have to rush through this."

"I just feel really alone right now, and I don't want to talk about this. I want the truth out, but I wish I could just get some sleep first. I feel like my mind is so jumbled, and I want to be able to tell the story the way it happened, but I'm just _so_ exhausted."

"I understand that, and I can have some coffee brought in so you'll at least have a caffeine boost, but we need you alert for this right now. I've gotta get a statement from you and I need you to answer my questions to the best of your abilities," the Captain replied. "You can always expand on your answers later, but I need to hear something general from you before I can let you go for the night."

"All right, so, what do you want to know?" she asked shakily, squeezing her hands together underneath the rectangular table.

"You say you lived in Minnesota, so we'll start with that. How did you end up here in Connecticut?"

"I drove myself part of the way and was bussed in for the last part of the trip. The day before yesterday, I was home for the holidays with my parents and — "

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but where were you home from, exactly?"

"School. I go to...er, I _went_ to MSU in Mankato, and I was studying to be a nurse. I have my own apartment near campus, but I went home to be with my family during Christmas."

"Okay, and how did it come about that you left their home and drove here?"

"I overheard them talking about me in the kitchen the last night I was there," Stephanie explained. "They didn't know I was eavesdropping, but they were talking about how glad they were to have gotten me 19 years ago. They didn't say they _had_ me, they said they had _gotten_ me, so I thought that was a little weird. At first, I assumed I was adopted and they just hadn't found a good way or time to tell me about it yet, so I went into the kitchen and asked them about it."

"What did you say to them and what did they say back to you?" he questioned.

"I asked if I was adopted, and my mom told me to stop being ridiculous, basically. She said I either needed to help her make the food or leave the room, and my dad didn't say anything at all. I could tell she was really agitated I was bringing it up, so I went upstairs without pushing the issue any further. When I got up there, though, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd heard, so I made sure the coast was clear and snuck into my parents bedroom to look around for clues to where I might have come from."

"And all your suspicions about possibly being adopted were over that single conversation?"

"No. That conversation was what drove me to look for answers, but I think, in the back of my mind, I always wondered about myself. From a young age, my parents were dyeing my naturally brown hair blond, and they would have a hard time producing personal documents, like my birth certificate and social security card. When I got to driving age and asked for them since the DMV required it for me to get my license, they made a big deal out of it and took forever to get them to me, so I felt like something weird might have been going on. I think I've been subconsciously suspicious for a long time, but I didn't know how to deal with it, so I suppressed the feelings."

"Tell me more about this dyeing your hair deal. They actively made changes to your outward appearance?"

"Yes," Stephanie nodded. The longer she spoke, the easier it was for the details to come spilling out, and she was thankful to Captain Branson for being able to put her enough at ease to open up. "From the time I was little, and I mean _really_ young, like, elementary school age, they've dyed my hair blond. This isn't my natural hair color at all," she said, combing her fingers through her loose, artificially golden locks. "They've kept it blond forever and encouraged me to continue it into adulthood, which is why I've kept up with it. It's a wonder my hair isn't completely fried by now with all the hair dye that's gone into it since I was little."

"Now, the people you believed to be your parents, what are their names?" the Captain asked.

Stephanie's eyes widened and she bit her bottom lip in hesitation, knowing she was finally at the bold impasse she would never be fully prepared to face. She wanted justice for herself, but not if it meant bringing down the only people she had ever known as parents. Regardless of what they had done, they had still cared for her during the bulk of her life, and she couldn't turn her back on them completely or pretend they never existed. Stephanie didn't have it in her heart to wish anything but the best for them, and she couldn't live with herself if they ended up locked behind bars for years on end because of her speaking out against them.

Still, on the other side of the coin, they presented a risk to their community if they were never held accountable for their actions. As much as Stephanie would have been satisfied getting to know her true parents and letting Gregory and Melissa go on living their uninterrupted lives back in Moorhead, she couldn't help but think of all the children living in the immediate area. There was no guarantee they wouldn't go on the prowl for another child in an attempt to replace Stephanie, and then she would be at least partially at fault for not having turned them in sooner. She didn't want to be a bad daughter or turn her back during their greatest time of need, but the truth should prevail, and she wanted to have a hand in making that happen.

"It's really hard for me to out them, because I feel like such a bad daughter. I know they took me from my real family, but I still love them and don't want them to be hurt. I mean, no matter what, they took care of me and loved me for all these years of my life. Can you just promise the police will go easy on them when they're taken in?"

"They'll be taken into custody for questioning and subsequently arrested if everything you're telling me checks out, but as long as they're respectful, they'll be treated with the same courtesy. They aren't going to be hurt if that's what you're worried about, but they are going to have to suffer the consequences of the crimes they committed."

"Crimes?" Stephanie asked, noting the plural form of the word.

"Yes. Not only did they kidnap you, but they took you across state lines, which is another charge entirely. There's a whole lot more that will go into this, but I'll make sure you have a clear understanding of the list of charges once they're officially apprehended," he assured. "Now, I know this is difficult, but I need you to give me their names so I can alert the police in Minnesota."

"Their names are Gregory and Melissa Crandall. They live at 1002 Pinehurst Avenue in Moorhead."

Captain Branson scribbled the information on a notepad before handing it off to his partner standing on the opposite side of the room. The other man glanced down at the information before giving Stephanie a nod and carrying it out of the room as he began his mission to track down her kidnappers. Stephanie couldn't escape the fierce guilt creeping inside of her, and she tried desperately to swallow the lump in her throat as she questioned whether or not she would ever be able to look herself in the mirror again. It took plenty of internal prodding to remind herself she was the victim in the situation and hadn't done anything worth being ashamed for.

"You've done the right thing, Stephanie. You gave me all the answers to the questions I've had, and now we're going to be able to help you to the best of our abilities. Can you give me a brief rundown of how it came about that you would leave Minnesota to come here? How did you know Vince and Linda McMahon were your parents?"

"I found those news articles in my parents' room."

"Which ones are you referring to?"

"I think Vince...um, my dad...I don't really know what to call him. This feels so weird," she said, rubbing her dampened palms along her pants. "Anyways, Vince has the articles, because I handed them off to him after I told him who I was earlier tonight. I found those clippings in my parents' closet, and I realized the age and appearance of the girl matched up with mine, and when I searched Vince's and Linda's names online, their information came up and that's how I knew where to find them. Then it made sense why my other parents were always dyeing my hair and trying to make me look different. They were disguising me so nobody would realize who I was and report them for kidnapping."

"So you packed up and left?"

"Yes. I got directions to Stamford online and hopped in my car. I took the car about halfway through the trip, then switched to a bus," she said, leaving out the details about why she left her car behind. They would eventually ask and she would have to talk about her parents reporting the car stolen, but that would all come in due time. "When I got here in town, I took a cab and paid for it using the last bit of money I took out of my account before I left Minnesota. I had the cab driver bring me to Titan Towers because I didn't have Vince's and Linda's home address, so I thought the next best thing would be to go to the building where they worked and do something that would get attention and bring them there."

"So you busted the window?"

"Yes, and I know it's a crime, so I'll gladly pay for it. I'll get them their money, and I'm really sorry I even did it, but I didn't know how else to get their attention," she rushed out, actually having to be lightly shushed by the Captain. He smiled warmly and held a hand up to halt her.

"This is a different case than most, and we understand your desperation. You're not going to be in trouble for the busted window, but if the McMahons order you to pay, we would legally require you to do so," he said before leaning in and lowering his voice, "but something tells me the last thing they're going to do is press charges on their own daughter. They understand why you did what you did."

"So, can I leave here with them tonight?"

"Well, now, that's up to them," Captain Branson said, straightening back up in his seat. "We have someone coming in the next few minutes who will want to swab your cheek and take the sample to a lab for DNA testing so they can match it up with the McMahons. Everything you're telling me seems to check out, but we've gotta do our investigation, and part of that is having proof that you're exactly the person you say you are. They're expediting the results, so we'll have them back in four days time, and if it's a positive match and your family would like to take you in, you'll be able to stay at their home. Legally speaking, there's nothing we can do to stop them from taking you home tonight, but they may be hesitant to do that until they have clear proof that you're indeed Stephanie McMahon."

"Where will I stay tonight if they don't want to take me? I won't have to sleep here, will I?" she asked, staring back at him with horror-crossed features at the thought of being stuck in jail for the night.

"No," he laughed softly, having been able to read her thoughts based on her expression, "we'll put you up in a hotel room at no additional cost to you until we figure this out. We're going to let you go for the night in just a bit, but I have to warn you that you will be questioned intensely over the next day or two. That's normal protocol though, and it's basically just our way to make sure we've got the right person and understand the whole situation."

"Okay, that's fine," she said before adding, "Do you know if Vince and Linda want to see me tonight? Would they be willing to talk to me? I know this whole thing might seem strange since I turned up out of the blue, but there isn't a single doubt in my mind I'm their daughter. I just really want to see them."

"Tell you what," Captain Branson replied, standing from his chair and stretching his cramped limbs, "why don't you wait here for a minute? I'll send in the technician who will be taking your DNA sample, and while they're doing that, I'll have a word with the McMahons and see if they're willing to meet with you tonight."

"Thank you so much for everything," Stephanie responded. She reached out to shake his hand, and he took it in each of his, holding it longer than she expected as he studied her closely. Stephanie brushed some hair away from her face as he smiled down at her, "I've got a girl of my own who's just about your age. You remind me of her."

"Oh," Stephanie nodded and smiled, not knowing what else to say. She wasn't her most eloquent in such times of urgency, and the Captain seemed to detect that and let her off the hook.

"You wait right here and I'll be back with you in a moment. Is there anything I can get you while I'm gone? A danish or some coffee?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine with water," she said.

With an understanding nod, Captain Branson retreated from the room, and Stephanie was forced to await her fate. The night could go in one of two directions, but she was praying it would work in her favor and she would be reunited with the father, the mother, and the brother she had never known well enough to have any vivid memories of. In the passing minutes, she was left with the loneliness of her own thoughts, wondering if her family was still standing at the windows, watching her and wondering if she was who she claimed to be, although they seemed pretty convinced. She felt as if her every move was being recorded, and it was uncomfortable being surveyed, but she was soon distracted by the arrival of the technician she had been told to expect.

At the expert's direction, Stephanie opened her mouth and allowed them to swab her inner cheeks with the end of what looked to be an extra-long Q-tip, the tickling sensation causing her to shudder. When the test was complete and they thanked her for the sample, the technician slipped quietly back out the door, and, almost instantly, Captain Branson was re-entering. He was struggling to keep a smile off his face, and Stephanie began beaming as an automatic play off of his jovial mood, because she knew it could only mean one thing — he must have gotten good news from the McMahons. Just as Nicki told her during their last phone conversation, Vince and Linda weren't going to reject her because of the mistakes someone else had made, and Stephanie was almost prepared to kick herself for assessing the situation so foolishly and thinking there was ever a chance they would turn their backs on her.

"They're willing to talk?" she asked.

"Better than that. They want to take you to their home for a late-night meal and get to know you," he relayed, walking over to the tape recorder and shutting it off. "Are you ready to see them again?"

"I was born ready," Stephanie announced, and as she rose from her seat in preparation to see the eager, forgotten faces of the parents she'd left behind so long ago, she couldn't help but reflect back on their initial run-in earlier that evening at Titan Towers.

_She made a beeline for Vince and Linda, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt it was the only chance she would receive to make an impression on them. It was also the closest she would ever be to them in person, and the opportunity was too huge to pass up. The solid patter of her shoes alerted everyone in the vicinity to her presence, and as she drew nearer, the police braced themselves, ordering her to a stop moving. Conflicted in wanting to obey their orders but not wanting to fall short of meeting her parents, Stephanie slowed to a brisk walk and clung to the arms of an extremely confused Vince McMahon as she finally came upon him. _

"_Please hear me out. I think I'm your daughter, Stephanie McMahon. Here, look!" she paused, frantically unzipping her purse and sorting through it before pulling out the articles she brought with her all the way from home. "I found these news clippings in the house of the people I thought were my parents, and I think it's me."_

"_Ma'am, back away," an officer came over and grabbed her firmly by the arm, inciting a fiery passion inside Vince as he grabbed Stephanie's other arm. _

"_Let me talk to her," he demanded. Vince aimed his flashlight towards the articles, and an unmistakable film of tears flooded his eyes as he glanced up at her. Careful to avoid her eyes with the shining beam of light, Vince pointed the flashlight at Stephanie's face and observed her physical features. Though he couldn't be certain, she carried the bulk of the McMahon features he would have expected to be seen in any daughter of his. "How old are you?"_

"_I'm 22."_

"_And you had your last birthday, when?"_

"_September 24th of this year," she announced. Luckily, that was one of the few traits about her real self that Gregory and Melissa hadn't felt the need to alter. _

_Vince's knees buckled underneath him, and he stumbled backwards at once, grasping blindly at the building to find the support to remain standing on his own two legs. In Vince's mind, it was entirely possible Stephanie was an unrelated young woman who had simply read up on the case and seen that specific birthday listed somewhere, but the way she spat it out without hesitance made him suspect she was genuine in her claims. The daughter he had resolved himself to assuming was long gone had finally resurfaced, and despite all the ways he had thought he might react, he was finding his behavior to be the complete opposite of what he assumed he would do in the event he came face-to-face with her again. Linda had gone briefly to Vince's side to make sure he was okay before backtracking to Stephanie in awe. _

_Linda reached up towards Stephanie's face and she flinched, not knowing what Linda was planning on doing, but, instead, her fingertips came down softly on each of Stephanie's cheeks as she swirled them around comfortingly. Linda seemed too choked with tears to speak, her eyes spilling over with emotion as she struggled to find her voice, which came out hoarse and strained, "You're our Stephanie Marie?"_

"_I think I am."_

"_My little baby girl?"_

"_Yeah," Stephanie said. "I'm 22 now, but I think my parents took me from you. I came here to find you because I wanted the truth to come out. If you're really my parents, then I want to be with you and get to know my other family members too," she turned off for a moment, eyes glossing over a dark-haired young man she assumed to be Shane. He basically looked like the female version of her, save for their conflicting hair colors. "Are you my brother?"_

_Shane put a hand to his forehead, his eyes expanding rapidly, as if he couldn't believe what he was actually seeing. He began pacing frantically while uttering the same phrase over and over again. "No way, no way, this can't really be happening. No way..."_

_Linda continued caressing Stephanie's face a moment longer before making a strange request of her, "Lift your shirt up."_

"_You want me to...lift my shirt?" Stephanie repeated in confusion, but Linda offered no immediate response, as she was already in the process of calling Vince back over. He had somehow found the strength to operate on his own two legs without the help of anyone else and strode over hesitantly, holding the flashlight out when Linda signaled for it. _

"_When you were a baby and I changed your outfits, I noticed you had a set of four small moles on your lower back that looked like they formed the corners of a square. Can you show me if it's still there?" Linda requested. _

_Now it was Stephanie's turn to choke up, as she hadn't known herself to have any physical markings, and for the first time, she realized she might have made a genuine mistake and not been who she thought she was. Gregory and Melissa had practically admitted it, but they were already proven to be liars and might have withheld the real truth for some unforeseen reason she couldn't detect. "I don't think I have any moles there," she rushed out in defeat. Then again, being that the markings were on her back, there was a chance she simply hadn't noticed them before because of their placement. Stephanie did as she was told, first lifting her jacket, followed by her shirt, and when the light hit the moles and Linda traced over them with a single fingertip, she crumpled in Vince's arms. _

"_It's her. Oh God, it's our little girl!" Linda wailed, sobbing into Vince's shirt as he held her close and rubbed her back. Shane, who was watching every bit of the exchange, stood gaping at Stephanie as if she had grown a second head. She tried to smile, but the whole situation was uncomfortable, and the cops weren't big on giving them privacy, as they stood around watching it all unfold. _

"_If you're a kidnapping victim, which is what I think I just heard, we'll need to bring you down to the station," a cop announced, coming up beside Stephanie. Shane's chest puffed out, shock turning to defensiveness, as he marched over and wrapped a protective arm around Stephanie's shoulders. _

"_Don't touch my sister!" he roared. "She's been through enough already."_

"_Sir, back away," the officer ordered politely, but firmly. "We can't have you interfering with a police investigation, so let us do our job."_

"_Then we're going with her," Shane said, eyeballing each of his parents. "We have to follow her to the police station!"_

"_Please don't leave me," Stephanie begged, gripping onto Linda's fragile frame as she continued to weep in Vince's arms. "Please, I went through hell to find you guys. Don't let them take me away!" she said. Shane held onto Stephanie for support and they embraced one another for a long while _— _so long she lost track of time __—__ and then everything was a blur as an officer stepped forward and pulled them apart. Stephanie reached out for him, starting to cry as they were separated and she watched her chances of spending the holiday with her family wan by the second. "Shane, don't forget about me. Find out where they're taking me and come see me! I don't want to lose you guys again!"_

"_You're not losing us. We're following right behind you in our car," he promised, adding, "We love you, Stephanie!"_

"_I love you guys too!" she called back, her last words ending in a strangled cry as her voice caught in her throat and vanished. The policeman leading her away was doing his best to be kind, making sure to explain to her that she was only being detained for questioning and that they wanted to confirm her identity and find out who had taken her. Stephanie was assured she would be let go after they had a talk with her, and she was loaded into the car without incident as she watched Shane rush Vince and Linda back to their own vehicle so they could follow. Knowing they would be coming along in support of her raised Stephanie's spirits immensely. _

_The police cruiser holding her sped out of the parking lot, and Stephanie took a final look back at the twinkling fragments of glass littering the ground, which she was leaving behind in her wake. _

Stephanie paused in the doorway of the room she had been occupying within the police station, taking a deep breath before crossing the threshold. The Captain led her through a narrow hallway and into a room further down, which surprised her since she assumed her family had been watching just outside the room she had given her first statement in. Something told her they had been, but the cops moved them so she wouldn't know they had heard every word of her official claims. They came to a sudden stop in front of what was labeled a conference room, and Captain Branson waved her ahead, leaving her with some kind parting words.

"There's no greater gift the parent of a missing child can receive than to get their child back, regardless of how long it takes. You're the best Christmas present they could have ever gotten," he smiled before holding up his wrist and tapping the face of his watch, "and with only a couple minutes to spare before the end of the holiday," he finished. As he walked away, Stephanie was hit with a renewed sense of energy, and she no longer cared that it was nearing midnight, she hadn't slept in hours, or that she was growing delirious from lack of rest. All she wanted was to reclaim the life she should have lived from the beginning. She reached out gingerly, releasing a whistling breath through pursed lips, and turned the doorknob.

Vince, Linda, and Shane were sitting around the table in anticipation of her arrival.


	9. Reunited, and It Feels So Good

A/N: Thanks for the reviews up to this point, and thanks for reading.

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The air in the room was instantly siphoned through an unseen tube and whisked away the second Stephanie placed her first foot inside the door. For that brief block of time, every occupant in the room stilled, their gazes glued to hers. They were objects frozen in space and time, stiff and silent enough that they could be outlined with a frame and pass themselves off as a photograph, albeit a tense one. Not a single person could find the proper words to say, nor were they sure there _were_ any appropriate comments to exchange after all the time that had lapsed.

It pained their hearts too much to mull over the loss of what could have been, hurt their heads too much to ask why, so it was silently decided they wouldn't bother with the trivial aspects of the situation. They were a family divided by fate but joined by the passage of time, and when that conclusion was reached, there wasn't a single force of nature capable of holding them apart any longer. Vince left his chair first, followed closely by Linda, and Shane sat motionless and wide-eyed a few seconds longer before he remembered himself and shot out of his seat as well. They formed a semi-circle around Stephanie, and three sets of arms wrapped around her shivering body, mirroring spider legs as they claimed her in their powerful hold with no plans to release.

Stephanie leaned forward, dropping her forehead against the first body part it came in contact with, which just so happened to be Linda's shoulder. One of Linda's hands found her hair and began stroking her deceptively blond tresses, and knowing she was finally in the arms of the woman who birthed her set Stephanie off in a way she hadn't expected, though she felt she should have. A choked sob rose from the back of her throat and seemed to set a sudden chain of events into motion, because it was only seconds later she heard the returned sniffles and cries of her family. In their arms she felt at home, but there was a flash of unrest in her heart, for only a brief second, as if she was divided between two things she loved.

She pushed the thought away at once, knowing she wasn't strong enough to contend with all it entailed. The moment was too tender to be turned into an examination of her life's events and why they had taken the particular course they had. Stephanie's forehead rested comfortably against Linda's shoulder, and she felt and tasted her own salty tears dripping from her face and onto the material of Linda's shirt below, which she hoped wasn't drenched too terribly much. They had only just met, but being close to them felt right, and there was no doubt the family she belonged with had been found.

Stephanie reluctantly picked her head up after several minutes, feeling the warmth resonating throughout her cheeks and inferring her face was red and blotchy. Linda raised a gentle hand and gingerly swiped the remaining tears from Stephanie's face using only the assistance of her thumb, while Vince continued rubbing Stephanie's back and Shane roamed the room alone, borderline erratically. He paced from one end to the other, as if he couldn't control his body's impulses and would explode if he couldn't keep moving. Growing up an only child, Stephanie was perhaps most excited about the new sibling aspect her life would take on when she settled in, and she smiled in Shane's general direction even though he wasn't paying attention.

"I have a brother," Stephanie murmured in astonishment, gazing at Vince when he chuckled.

"You're happy about that, aren't you?" he questioned, eyes shining brightly, as if he could tell precisely what she was thinking.

"Yeah," Stephanie answered. "I wasn't raised with any siblings, but I always wanted at least one, so I got my wish," she said, noticing Shane had picked up the pace in his elongated strides and had one hand on his hip and the other up to his forehead. She looked on worriedly, asking, "Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine. He's just having a hard time processing this like we all are, but we'll be okay," Linda assured her, rubbing up and down her arms. Her natural inclination to show physical affection comforted Stephanie enough to slow her breathing and relax her jitters. She was with the only group of people who loved and cared for her in a way nobody else in the world did, not even Gregory and Melissa, and Stephanie wanted to hold onto that feeling for as long as she could. Linda watched her silently for a good, long while before speaking up. "You're so beautiful. You look like your father, but I see a little bit of me in there too."

"She does look like me, doesn't she?" Vince asked, beaming with pride as he took her in.

"I'll look even more like you once I can dye my hair brown. I had to dye my hair blond when I was little to hide my identity, even though I didn't know at the time those were their motives for doing it," Stephanie explained. "Now that I'm back with you guys, I just want my hair to be brown, the way it was meant to be."

"We love you _so_ much, sweetheart," Linda responded with a wavering voice, letting Stephanie know in an instant that her hair color was the least of their concerns. With a trembling tone and even shakier limbs, Linda took Stephanie's cheeks in each of her hands, eyes glazing over as she regarded her. "We never stopped hoping you would come back to us. Some days were much darker than others, but we always prayed for you, and I want you to know that. I'm so..." her voice cracked, "I'm so sorry I wasn't watching you more closely. This is all my fault," she moaned, erupting into a fresh wave of tears.

"No, it's not your fault," Stephanie shook her head, speaking over her mother's cries as she leaned in to hug her. A shift of the roles surfaced, in which Stephanie found herself playing the role of the consoling parent, while Linda was like the child who just needed that extra bit of reassurance to know life would return to normal at some point. "I don't think you did anything wrong, and I don't think I did either. Some things just happen, and there's no rhyme or reason, but it's what's meant to be."

"How can you ever forgive me?" she cried out, clutching Stephanie with as much power as her grip would allow. Linda's manicured nails were digging into Stephanie's back, but the adrenaline rush from the evening was keeping her pain receptors from crying out too much, so she didn't mention it.

"I don't think there's anything to forgive, because you didn't do anything wrong in the first place," Stephanie answered, pausing to lick her lips. Her throat had grown parched enough that she began wishing for the glass of water that had been supplied to her in the previous room, but she had a larger task at hand than quenching her thirst. "I know you wouldn't have let anything happen to me on purpose, and I don't blame you for this. I blame the people who took me."

Vince's eyes flashed with some mysterious sentiment, as if a horrible thought crossed his mind. "Did they hurt you?"

"No," Stephanie shook her head, pulling away from Linda and nearly sighing in relief when she noticed Shane was no longer pacing the length of the room like a madman, though he was still standing alone in complete silence. "The couple who raised me were good to me my whole life, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't love them, but...it's just a really hard thing, because I have so many mixed feelings about this."

"I understand," Vince said.

"I _do_ love them, but I also feel like they robbed me of a part of my life I can never fully recover. I don't know, it's just really hard right now, but I want to be with you," she told Vince before turning her attention to her two other family members. "I want to be with all three of you. They may have done DNA testing, but I don't need to see the results to know I'm where I belong. I know you're my parents, and I know Shane's my brother. I can feel our connection."

"I feel it too," Linda admitted, wiping her eyes and accepting the handkerchief Vince pulled from his pants pocket so she could blow her nose. Stephanie took the break in conversation as an opportunity to get to know Shane, so she stepped around her parents and strode across the room, coming to an abrupt stop in front of him. He glanced up slowly, but took careful measures not to look directly at her, as if she was the blazing sun and his pupils would be scorched simply for observing her.

"What do you do, Shane?" Stephanie asked, quickly amending her statement by adding, "I mean, for work."

The casual nature of the topic at hand seemed to be the heat that thawed his chilled demeanor, and his eyes connected with hers right away. He smiled, answering, "I don't work, at least, not technically. Dad always says if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life."

"Those are words to live by," she agreed knowingly.

The profession Stephanie had chosen to go into afforded a solid living, but the biggest reason she selected the nursing field was to make a difference. There had been a countless number of times Stephanie sat on the couch with Gregory and Melissa and told them she felt her calling was to do something that mattered in the world. Rather than spend her time pushing papers at a desk job she couldn't care less about, she wanted to enter an industry she could give her whole heart to and that would allow her to someday leave the world in significantly better condition than she found it. Being a nurse would allow her to be the change she had always longed to see in the world, and that in itself was reward enough.

"Yeah, so I work with my parents. We run the shows and work out of the offices you were just in the parking lot of," Shane said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Do you think you'd want to work there someday?"

"You mean I'm still welcome back there after breaking the window?" she asked. The question was tinged with just the right amount of humor that she got a laugh out of every single person in the room.

"We'd love to have you there," Vince cut in. "We'll bring you to see the inside of the offices whenever you're ready."

"Thank you," Stephanie said, not having the heart to reject their offer in favor of telling them she was planning on resuming nursing school as soon as she possibly could.

There was no way she could return to school in Mankato, or anywhere else in the state of Minnesota, because everything that had happened hit too close to home, and she couldn't bring herself to go back. Though she would need to ease into it, Stephanie planned on telling her family she was going to apply to nursing school at a nearby university in Connecticut, so she could be close to them while completing her education. It would be trying at best, devastating at worst, to uproot her entire life, but Stephanie was dedicated to living as much of a normal existence as possible, considering the unforeseen circumstances. Just as she was beginning to wonder why they were still stuck in the stuffy conference room of the police station, her family seemed to take notice as well.

Already, they were collectively on the same page.

"Why don't we get out of here?" Vince proposed.

"Yes, we've got plenty of good food at home, Stephanie, and we'd love it if you would join us. I don't want to tire you out, but I've got so many questions, as I'm sure everyone else does," Linda noted, glancing around the room. "We would be more than happy to have you stay with us so we can get to know you. It's your home too, you know. We bought it for our children, and now that you've come back to us, we want you there."

"I'm so relieved," Stephanie admitted, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "My best friend back home was reassuring me when I told her I was coming to find you, but I thought there was a chance you might not be happy to see me."

"Heavens no," Linda gasped, bringing a hand to her heart and resting it there. "How could you think we would be anything less than thrilled to see you?"

"Well, I knew if I could prove who I was you would be happy, but I thought you might not believe me, and I didn't know where I would go from there if that were to happen. I didn't realize I had those moles on my back that could identify me, or else I would have been a lot less worried."

"Well, you're safe with us now, sweetie," Linda replied.

She held her arm out for Stephanie, wanting to pick up right where she'd left off with her daughter all those years ago, even though a part of her knew she couldn't ever fully recapture what had been. When Stephanie reached Linda, she snaked her arm around Stephanie's back and began leading her towards the door, pulling it open as they formed a solid duo, the men bringing up the rear. Every once in a while, Linda would glance over wearing a loving smile as she smoothed Stephanie's hair down and held her close during their walk, and it put Stephanie more at ease than anything else could have. As ecstatic as she was to have found her family, Stephanie couldn't evade the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach when thoughts of Gregory or Melissa flitted into mind.

She no longer allowed herself to refer to them, either inwardly or outwardly, as her mother and father. It felt wrong to think that way when she had her real parents right in front of her, and she wasn't going to accept Gregory and Melissa the way they wanted, not after they committed such a painful act. If Stephanie was going to have a relationship with them, it would fall under her own terms, and she wasn't yet of mentally sound mind to decide the conditions of their intangible contract. Her stomach was too empty, her head too light, and her heart too heavy to form a single intelligent thought as to how she needed to proceed with them in the future.

The Moorhead police would be arriving at her mock-parents house soon, if they hadn't already, and she was thankful to be far enough away that she didn't have to actually witness their being apprehended. It would hurt in a way she couldn't explain, so the distance worked as an anti-irritant, in that sense. Once they were sentenced or went through the courts and were handed out the particular level of punishment the judge and jury saw fit, Stephanie planned to visit them and make sure they knew their years of support wouldn't be forgotten. She would always remember them as the ones who took care of her, but she would never forget _why_ they were the people she had spent her life under the care of instead of her real family.

As they rounded the corner and started on the home stretch to the station exit, Captain Branson slunk over with his business card and handed it off to Stephanie, making certain she remembered they would be in contact. The police force was being kind enough to send a detective to the McMahon family home to question her, rather than hauling her back into the station each time they needed to know something, so that helped to set her mind at ease, even if only for a short while. Conversation was scarce as they walked back out to their vehicle, and Stephanie slipped in the back seat beside Shane, while Vince and Linda took up the front seats. Just as Vince started the car and turned the heater on to warm them, Stephanie's cell phone began ringing.

She stared, dumbfounded, at her purse and silently cursed the offensive ring. Everyone in the car turned to her, and she blushed under their gazes, but the blackness of night concealed her bashfulness. She felt the need to speak up, saying, "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting to get a call this late at night."

"It's okay, you should take it," Vince urged. "It could be important."

Stephanie fished the phone from the center compartment of her purse and her heart sank when she recognized the number as Gregory's. If he was going to pick any time to call her, he chose the worst one, so she planned right away to get rid of him as quickly as possible. She wasn't going to allow him to guilt-trip her into returning to their home, because she was too happy with her real family to even consider leaving, though she would be open to discussing visits with him down the road. She answered the call and brought the phone up to her ear, cutting straight to the chase.

"It's awfully late. Can you call me back sometime tomorrow?" she opened.

"I'm calling about your mom," Gregory rushed out.

"What about her?" Stephanie frowned, not understanding his frantic tone.

"Can you come to the hospital? She's hurt badly, and they're trying to stitch her up in the emergency room."

"What happened to her?" she demanded. Vince, Linda, and Shane busied themselves pretending as if they weren't listening in on her phone call, but it was impossible not to eavesdrop with the close proximity they all sat in. Stephanie detested the way her heart began drumming out a panicked rhythm, and all after she had finally found a few moments of respite. Her life had been one dramatic scene after another for the past several days, and she wanted to put an end to it, at least for a decent while if not for good.

"Things aren't good right now, darlin'..."

Stephanie's breath caught in her throat as she grabbed hold of the armrest and clutched her fingers securely around its edge for support. Shane's finger came down on her leg as he tapped her, and when she glanced over, he signaled to the seat belt she hadn't been bothered to strap around herself in her haste. She whispered a quick word of thanks and held her phone between her shoulder and cheek as she reached for the strap and clicked it into place. "Please just tell me what happened. I can't take this anymore."

"She cut herself."

"Cut herself how?" Stephanie inquired.

"She's still alive, so I don't want you falling into a downward spiral about this, but your mother...she...she slit her wrists, Stephanie."

Her cell phone plopped into her lap with a sound thud.


	10. Fear Is Crime's Punishment

A/N: Thanks for the faves and follows thus far. It means a lot to know people are enjoying this.

* * *

The McMahon residence was a colossal estate, nestled just beyond an ironclad security gate and the homey nature of the sedate woods. A gathering of sky-scraping trees, each with colorful leaves rustling in the soft breeze of the winter night, were among one of the first sights to greet Stephanie upon arrival. She felt cheated, as if she couldn't fully enjoy the breathtaking scenery the way she should have been able to, and it was all thanks to a harrowing decision Melissa had chosen to make earlier in the evening. Vince rolled his car window down, and she pulled her jacket more tightly against her body as a noisy beep sounded with each key he pressed on the number pad.

When finished, Vince rolled his window back up and the looming gate opened in front of their vehicle, allowing them entrance. The sensory features allowed for the gate to detect when they were all the way through, and it closed automatically behind them, with Stephanie turned around in her seat as she watched on in suspense. Everything the McMahons owned was extremely technologically sound, but she should have assumed nothing less for a family of their economic status. She faced forward in her seat once more, but it wasn't until the targeted muscles in her right hand and arm began crying out for relief that she realized she'd been clutching her cell phone tightly enough to cut off circulation.

Naturally, her family wondered what had taken place during her verbal exchange with Gregory that had been enough to make her drop the phone in her lap, and she had told them the gist of what was going on, not having the strength to go into any particular detail on the matter. Basically, Stephanie found the kindest way possible to inform Gregory that she wouldn't be showing up at the hospital in person and left it at that. Her lack of attendance wasn't indicative of how much, or how little, she cared for Melissa, and she made that clear throughout their discussion. Stephanie would be doing what was best for her, which was to remain with her family indefinitely and call the hospital every couple of hours for health updates, until the time came for Melissa to be released.

The car had grown silent with Vince's turning the radio off and was hushed enough to allow for a pin to be heard dropping, except for the faint crackling sound of crisp leaves and leftover snow falling victim beneath the vehicles crushing tires. The front headlights bounced off the front door, playing off the added illumination provided by the porch light, and Stephanie's mouth dropped open when she got her first clear glimpse of the house...or, rather, the mansion. A short row of stairs, with a ground light secured in the grass on either side, led to a marble landing and a second, matching set of stairs that eventually brought visitors straight to the front door. Short, neatly clipped rows of bushes lined the first-floor windows and rested below the view of the upstairs balcony, extending high from above.

"Welcome home," Linda announced, whirling around and smiling at Stephanie, but she was too busy gaping at the impressive size of the home to return the smile. "I know it's late, but we'll take you on a little tour when we get inside, if you're up to it," she amended, having remembered the traumatic phone call Stephanie received after leaving the police station.

Stephanie tried to speak, but her unformed words manifested themselves in the form of a high-pitched squeak, which Shane seemed to find exceptionally funny, if his jolly laughter was any indication. Finding her voice after several seconds time, Stephanie said, "This house is so beautiful. I can't imagine ever living in a place like this."

"You'll get used to it," Shane assured her, having composed himself. "It's probably going to feel intimidating while it's new to you, but in a week or two, you'll be navigating this place like a pro."

She couldn't help but notice the thick abundance of trees and the presence of an additional span of lingering woods lining the entire home, tree branches extended in such a way that made it appear as if they existed for the sole purpose of highlighting the house's features. Vince parked the car in the spiral driveway and shut the engine off, shifting his body to his left side, which allowed him the ability to peer into the back seat. "Are you feeling okay, Stephanie? If you're tired, we can let you sleep and show you the house tomorrow."

"I think I'm getting a little tired," she answered. "Maybe we can just talk tonight and I can take a full tour of the house tomorrow."

"Your wish is our command," he answered politely.

When Stephanie climbed out of the car, it was on a wobbly set of legs that she struggled to recognize, and she shut her door in time to find Linda waiting for her at the front of the vehicle. She went straight to Linda, who wrapped her up in another hug before leading her towards the first set of stairs as she said, "I'm sorry if I'm hugging you way too much, which I know I am, but it's so surreal to have you back. I almost don't even know what to do with myself."

"It's okay. It's hard for me to believe too," she admitted. Shane was walking ahead of them, but he slowed his pace and hung back to allow them time to catch up when he noticed the female pair was falling behind. When they reached Shane, Stephanie fell into stride between him and Linda, and they each wrapped an arm securely around her shoulders, while Vince led the pack and fumbled with his keys so he would be able to open the front door.

"Just ring the doorbell, Dad. She'll answer," Shane called ahead, and Stephanie had to wonder who the "she" was that he had referred to.

It wasn't a stretch to assume they had maids or housekeepers, so she figured it was someone they had left in charge of their home while they were gone. Regardless, Shane's claim was assuring enough for Vince, who placed his keys in his coat pocket and climbed the second set of stairs in a less frazzled condition. Shane was squeezing Stephanie's shoulder so tightly she thought he might ebb the blood flow to that area, but she was soon distracted by Linda having gone back to running her hands soothingly over her hair. Their acts of affection didn't make her uncomfortable, because even though she hadn't known them for long, she was fitting in with her family in a way she couldn't possibly have predicted.

Already, she felt loved beyond measure.

Vince reached the front door, at last, and rang the doorbell, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning around to watch the rest of the family as they made up ground. When the trio joined him on the porch, he focused his attention on Stephanie, sending her a warm smile before whirling around when Marissa opened the door. Having been briefed on the phone by Shane as to the events of that evening, she had been fully anticipating Stephanie's miraculous arrival on the doorstep. Not only had Shane given her as many details as possible, but it was also all over the news, making the latest developments essentially impossible to miss, even for the most oblivious of people.

It was all Marissa could do to scramble out of the doorway in time for everyone to rush inside, since they were all experiencing varying degrees of desperation to escape the brittle weather. Shane was the final person to enter, and after making sure the front door was closed and bolted, he reached for Marissa's hand and led her to Stephanie, who was standing awkwardly with clasped hands in the center of the room. Shane pressed a kiss to Marissa's temple and smiled, "So, this is my sister. Isn't it funny how we were just discussing her and then this happens?"

Marissa's dead stare locked onto Stephanie, who she eyed from head to toe. Stephanie tried to smile, uncertain who Marissa actually was, but before she got a chance to greet her properly, Marissa fanned her burning face and rushed out of the room. Stephanie couldn't remember any point in times past when she'd had such an effect on someone, and even though she hadn't upset Marissa on a personal level, she still hated that her presence alone had been enough to run someone out of a room altogether. Shane's bemused gaze followed the path she left in her wake and he went after her, but not without pausing to press a kiss to Stephanie's cheek and officially welcome her home.

"Was that my sister?" Stephanie questioned confusedly.

"Oh, no, honey," Linda chuckled. "Although, I suppose you could think of her like a sister. That's Shane's wife, Marissa. She's heard all about you and seen your pictures, so I'm sure having you show up in person is shocking for her and she didn't know how to react. She'll be fine once you get settled in, and then we can introduce you to her again."

"So Shane's my only sibling for sure?"

"Yes, he's the only one," Linda affirmed. She placed her purse on the coffee table and shed herself of her jacket, which had become overbearing in the heated house. Stephanie considered doing the same, but she was still shivering uncontrollably and decided she could use the assistance of her protective outerwear. While Vince distracted himself with positioning his jacket on the coat rack near the front door, Linda closed in on Stephanie, grabbing her hand as she motioned for her to turn around. "Let me get a good look at my little girl. Do a twirl for me."

Stephanie did as was requested, though she giggled nervously the whole way through. Something about knowing she was being watched so intently put her on guard, and she found herself praying she was living up to the expectations of her parents. When she was facing forward again, Vince came over and latched onto her free hand, bringing it to his awaiting lips and pressing a kiss to her cold skin. He seemed to take notice of her incessant shivering, because the next thing she knew, he was offering to put a pot of coffee on for everyone to enjoy while seated around the kitchen table as a group.

"That sounds like a great idea," Linda urged.

"Are you both coming with?" he inquired.

"I'm going to talk to Stephanie in here for just a minute, but we'll be right there," Linda assured.

"You'd better make good on that promise, because I don't want to be away from this one," Vince said, pointing at Stephanie. He leaned in to hug her, adding, "By the time this next 24 hours is done, you'll be completely sick of us hugging and kissing you, but we can't help it. You have no idea how many nights we dreamed of you coming back to us, and now, here you are in the flesh."

"It's okay, I won't get sick of it," Stephanie responded as he pulled away. "You can never have too many kisses and hugs."

Vince slipped the tip of his forefinger underneath her chin and lifted it, staring deeply into the aqua abyss of her eyes. For a moment, he struggled with what to say, as was evident by the repeated opening and closing of his mouth. For men, he and Shane were fairly open with their feelings, but even the best of expressive people would have faltered in such an emotionally charged situation. "Stephanie, I...I want...I _need_ you to know that I love you very much. You've always been in my heart, and I never stopped holding out hope we would find you. No matter how much time we missed out on, you're always and forever going to be our daughter."

Stephanie was taken aback by such touching words and offered a heartfelt response of her own. "I love you too, and I'm so glad I found you," she admitted, leaning forward and whispering, "and it's also cool that I look so much like you."

Vince let out a hooting, hearty laugh at that and clapped her lightly on the back. Eyes shining brightly, he said, "That's my girl," before showing himself out of the room to get their steaming beverage started.

Linda surprised Stephanie by not wasting a single second and cutting straight to the chase, "What was your life like with the people who took you? Did they hurt you or make your life any harder than it needed to be?"

Stephanie paused a moment to reflect on her home life from childhood through adolescence. She hadn't wanted for anything in her life and had always felt provided for, oftentimes to the point where she could easily be considered spoiled by the common outsider. Growing up, her life had consisted of lavish vacations during the summer months, taking up residence in generally well-to-do neighborhoods, and being provided direct funding from Gregory and Melissa to partake in any sport or extracurricular activities of her choosing. More than anything, her life had been one of health and abundance, and though there was plenty to be bitter about, Stephanie was more thankful than anything else.

"To be honest, I had a really good life," she said. Linda gestured for her to have a seat on the plush, cream-colored couch, which she went to gratefully, having grown tired of standing on shaky knees. Linda took her place beside Stephanie and wrapped an arm around her back, tucking some hair behind Stephanie's ear with her free hand. "Gregory and Melissa were the people I always thought were my parents, and they took great care of..." she trailed off.

"What is it, darling?" Linda pressed, sensing something amiss.

"I just thought of my...Melissa. I have to remember to call again and make sure she's okay before I go to bed tonight. I was told she would be fine, but I still want to make sure. They're keeping her overnight for observation and then a couple extra days for suicide watch."

"Has she been mentally unstable in the past?"

"No," Stephanie's eyes widened and she shook her head vigorously, "not at all. I think with everything that's happened, she's in shock, and this was the only way she knew how to cope with the situation. As far as I know, she's never attempted suicide, so this is a pretty big shock to me. I just feel so...harsh, I guess."

"Why?"

"Because I should probably be at the hospital with her, but I'm sitting here so calmly, and it feels wrong. Should I drive back to see her?"

"I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm letting you go after all the years I've missed out on with you," Linda panicked, holding her tighter than ever. "If you feel like you have to go back and see her that's perfectly understandable, but Vince and I will fly there with you. Please don't go back there on your own. I'm not trying to guilt-trip you, but if you leave, it will be devastating for us. We'll learn to let go eventually, but for now, we need the extra reassurance of seeing you with our own two eyes so we can know that you're all right."

"Are you sure it's a good idea for you to show up in the same building as them? Wouldn't that cause, like, a confrontation or something?"

"Vince and I are both mature enough to handle it. I mean, we're not going to be overly polite if we happen to see one of them, but we'll find a way to be civil. I just want the cops to find them and decide on a punishment for what they've done."

"I'll check with him later to see exactly which hospital they brought her to, and we'll go from there," Stephanie said. She was timid with her pronouns, swapping out the words mother and father with "him" and "her", because it was easier than calling them by their first names. Though she no longer viewed Gregory and Melissa as her parents in the general sense, she wasn't completely comfortable with referring to them by their given names, either.

"That sounds like a reasonable plan," she said before shifting gears. "Were you happy growing up?"

"I was, yeah."

"And you're not downplaying anything they did? You were always well taken care of?"

"I think I was. I always had a roof over my head and food on the table, so I consider that to be a great life in itself."

Linda opened her mouth to ask another question, but she never got the chance, as Vince came in and beckoned them over with an eager wave of his hand. "Coffee's about finished. Will my two best gals come join us?"

"We sure will," Linda replied.

She stood alongside Stephanie, not wanting to let go of her but knowing she would have to at some point. There was so much lost time to make up, and, yet, the missing minutes couldn't ever be completely retrieved. Linda predicted building a meaningful relationship with Stephanie so late in her life would be an uphill, lifelong battle, but it would be worth every bit of effort if it meant she would be able to enjoy a purposeful bond with the daughter she'd always dreamed of knowing. She did the hardest thing she could have done in that moment, which just so happened to be parting from Stephanie long enough for them to walk into the kitchen separately.

Stephanie strode only a few paces ahead and, still, Linda's mind screamed that the distance was too much, but she couldn't do anything about it without coming off as an overbearing mother. She didn't want to scare Stephanie away before they got to know her, so she contained herself as best she could and focused her thoughts on coffee. The gravity of the situation was fully capable of swallowing her whole if she wasn't able to find her happy place, so she concentrated on the smallest thing she could in hopes it might quell her racing thoughts, which just so happened to be the beverage waiting in their coffee pot. Vince directed Stephanie to the coffee mug placed out for her on the counter and showed her where the cream and sugar was kept.

When Linda's eyes wandered to the dining room table, she found Shane enveloping Marissa in his left arm while he nursed a partially sipped cup of coffee in the other hand. Stephanie brought her mug to the pot and tentatively poured herself a small cup of coffee, taking a moment to add generous amounts of cream and sugar, before she brought her spoon with her and stepped in front of the table. Her eyes met Shane's and she gave a small shrug, as if to ask where she should sit. He responded right away, patting the chair beside him as he jerked his head to indicate he wanted her to come around.

She took a seat and stirred the added contents into her coffee as she glanced over the spacious kitchen, complete with wooden floors and marble counter tops that gave her a flashback to the steps leading to the front porch. The refrigerator and oven were both made of steel and sat adjacent to one another, with a row of cabinets between them and a large sink on the opposite side of both appliances. A center island rested directly in the center of the room and had three stools of a matching color lining the side closest to the dining room table. A crystal chandelier hung from above and completed the exquisite feel of the kitchen, though the fully polished look was officially rounded out by the crystal vase in the center of the table, which was filled with a casual assembly of fresh orchids.

Stephanie absently reached out to brush her hand over one of the stems just as Linda was taking her seat across from her, and she took notice of her daughter's interest. "You like flowers?"

"I love them," Stephanie said, smiling softly as she pulled her hand away.

"I'll have our florist bring some fresh flowers that we can put in your bedroom, if you'd like."

"That would be incredible. I'd love that," she answered.

"So..." Shane cut in, feeling the appropriate time had come to introduce his sister and wife to each other for a second time. It was unreal to think he had spoken of Stephanie only hours before, wishing she would be brought back to them, and there she was sitting right beside him. A part of Shane was terrified he would soon wake up and find it was all a dream, so he was trying to fit in as much talk time with Stephanie as he could to make it count for all it was worth, in case it turned out to be a cruel mirage. "This is my wife, Marissa. Riss, this is Stephanie."

"Hi," Stephanie reached across Shane to shake Marissa's hand, but all Marissa did was stare back at her in astonished wonder. Shane laughed and kissed his wife's forehead, attempting to bring her back into the conversation.

"Riss, isn't there anything you want to say to Stephanie?" he prodded.

"I...I'm sorry," she said, locking eyes with Stephanie as she spoke. "This is just so crazy for me, because Shane and I were literally _just_ talking about you, and now you're here, and...it feels so dreamlike, almost as if this can't possibly be real. If I take a longer time to respond to you tonight, please don't think I'm being rude. I'm just still in shock is all, but it's really nice to see and meet you, Stephanie."

"It's nice to meet you too, and it's okay, I understand," she replied. "Believe me, I was in for the shock of my life when I first found out I had been abducted. I found the articles about my abduction in my parents' room and then I locked myself in my own bedroom with my dog and searched the internet for..." she trailed off, a horrified expression marring her features as she brought her hand to her mouth. "Oh no...Dusty..." she murmured.

"What's the matter?" Linda asked, alarmed by the sudden shift in her mood.

"My dog," Stephanie said. In all the excitement and urgency of the night's events, she had forgotten she left her dog behind, and it made her feel like the worst pet owner on earth. There was no excuse for her to leave her dog behind without at least considering what might be going on with her, but she also trusted that Gregory would have the wherewithal to leave the hospital and feed her when the time came. All sets of eyes were focused on Stephanie as Vince came to the table and rounded out the group, so she saw fit to explain. "I'm sorry, it's just that I remembered I left my dog behind. She's a husky, her name is Dusty, and she's all alone in my old house. I really want to go get her, plus, I feel like I should visit the hospital. It feels like I have unfinished business there, but I wanted to get to you all before time ran out."

"And we're so glad you did," Vince reached out to pat her hand. "I don't see any reason Linda and I can't fire up the jet and bring you where you need to go."

"Oh, she actually already offered that to me, but I don't want to put you guys out," Stephanie spoke warily. She couldn't drop in on her new family and expect them to start doing her bidding and jump every single time she made a request. Still, they loved her and only wanted what was in her best interest, so it likely wouldn't bother them a single bit to bring her to her old home for a visit. "The detective here already recorded my parents' names, so I know they're going to be taken in soon for questioning, and I don't want Dusty brought to a pound by the police, but I can't bring her here either, so I don't know what to do."

"Who says you can't bring her here?" Shane piped in. "Mom, Dad, you guys don't care, do you?"

"I would be fine with confining her to certain areas in the house," Linda agreed. "I see no problem with bringing your dog, but we'll have to set some ground rules, and not because I don't love dogs, but because we've got some breakable things I don't want her getting into. She's a puppy, right?"

"No, actually, she's four years old, and she's the calmest, sweetest dog you could ever meet. I miss her so much," Stephanie said, nearly tearing up at the memory of her. She had to get back to her beloved pet, and _soon_.

"Okay, that's a different story then. We can be a little more lenient with her. Why don't we take the jet tomorrow after you're well rested? Does that sound okay to you?" Vince questioned. Stephanie gazed appreciatively around the table at the family she had gained, basically overnight, and her heart overflowed with a surge of love she couldn't have foreseen no matter how long she lived. At last, she was right where she belonged, with the people who loved her most, and for the first time in her life, she understood what home felt like.

"That sounds amazing," she replied. Stephanie brought her mug to her mouth and blew on the piping hot liquid before bringing the glass to her lips and savoring a sip of the warmth inducing beverage. Not wanting to part from her family but knowing she needed to check in with Gregory and see how Melissa was doing, Stephanie made the decision to ask for a brief moment of alone time. Placing her mug back down, she inquired, "Is it okay if I step into the next room to make a quick phone call? I just want to see how Melissa's doing."

"That's no problem at all. You go right ahead," Linda remarked. Sending her a grateful smile, Stephanie scooted back in her chair and slipped into the living room, finding her purse on the table precisely where she left it. After digging her cell phone out for what felt like the millionth time that night, she placed a call to Gregory's phone, but when her call was answered, the unknown male voice on the other end of the line threw her off. It was different, a few octaves lower than the voice of the man she had been raised by, and the unexpectedness of it threw her for a loop.

"Hello? Is someone there?" the man asked, and she couldn't ignore the insane racket taking place in the background. It sounded as if there were a group of people with him, and Stephanie's instincts were crying out, screaming that something wasn't right.

"Yes, I'm here," Stephanie said. Though she already had her answer, she didn't know what else to do except lead into what was on her mind by asking, "Is this Gregory?"

"No, ma'am, it's not. My name is Tyler Bradford, and I'm an officer with the Moorhead Police Department," he informed. Stephanie's mouth dried like a barren desert, and she began craving a large glass of ice water to quench her sudden, unbearable thirst. Something was clearly wrong, just as she had assumed. "May I ask who's calling, please?"

"This is Gregory's daugh..." she began before thinking better of it and rephrasing her statement. "I'm just a friend. I was calling Gregory to find out how his wife, Melissa, is doing. Is he anywhere nearby for me to speak to?"

"Ma'am, he won't be calling you from this phone anytime soon, if ever again. Gregory has been taken into police custody on suspicion of the 1979 kidnapping of Stephanie McMahon."


	11. Can't Win for Losing

She pressed her back to the closed guestroom door, flipping the light switch on as sweat broke out across the length of her furrowed brow. The lock was engaged, but she stretched her arms out across the door anyway, providing a protective barrier between herself and the strangers spread throughout various spots in the house. Her cell phone was clutched so tightly in her hand that her knuckles had gone white, fist trembling uncontrollably. The initial shock and numbness of finding her family had worn off and was replaced with a swelling surge of doubt she couldn't have shaken no matter how hard she attempted to wriggle away.

After news of Gregory's arrest had been dropped on her like an igniting bomb, Stephanie had let her family in on the latest developments and announced she would be turning in for the night. Shane had been kind enough to show her to the spacious guestroom, of which she was standing in at that very moment, heart thudding inside her chest as she sorted through her life's problems. Each time she allowed her heart to speak to her, it offered an answer she wasn't ready to contend with, so she pushed it away. If Stephanie admitted the truth to herself, it would be like slapping her family in the face, and she couldn't treat them with such carelessness after they had given her a place to stay and taken her in, as if she was never stolen to begin with.

Stephanie gulped, pulling the blanket from off the top of the bed more snugly around her hunched shoulders. Only about one hour had elapsed since she was brought to her room for the night, and it was safe to assume her family thought she was asleep. _If they only knew_. An endless array of ideas shot through her mind, intermingling and merging with others as she tried to make sense of the wisest move to make. What she was considering doing would negate all the traveling and the plans she had suffered through for the past few days, but the regret she carried only served as solid proof that people craved whatever they recognized as being normal.

Gnawing at her bottom lip to contain a growl, both the blanket and her cell phone dropped to the floor as she used both hands to clutch her hair, silently berating herself. She was foolish, so entirely shortsighted, not to have realized how much she would miss the life she had left behind. Regardless of whether or not it was the upbringing meant for her, it had been familiar and safe. She hunched over, hands on her knees while staring wide-eyed at the carpet below, when the next thought hit her like a rushing train and left her breathless in the aftermath. After all the work she had put into finding her biological family, one truth remained, in that she had two sets of parents, but she only needed one of them in that moment — Gregory and Melissa.

She sank to her knees and grasped at her phone as if it was the only lifeline she had left. In some odd way, it was. Her phone linked her to all those she had left behind in her haste, a venture she was questioning herself on more with each passing second. With Gregory held by law enforcement, and Melissa teetering on the edge of sanity in a hospital bed somewhere, there was only one person Stephanie could trust with her mismatched emotions. She called Nicki.

"Jen...sorry, Stephanie, is that you?" Nicki rushed out. A wave of loud music droned in the background, but it lessened after Stephanie recognized the thud of a closing door in the background. She was probably at a Christmas party, living it up, while Stephanie's life fell even more to pieces than it had in December of 1979. "Where have you been? I've been trying to call you back for hours. You're all over the news!"

"Nic," Stephanie began, her tone shrunken and childlike, "can you come get me?"

"Come get you? Where from?"

"From my new parents, or real parents, whatever you want to call them."

"Wait...why do you want to leave?" Nicki asked, which was a perfectly logical question, given the circumstances, but Stephanie detested it all the same. There would be time to explain later, but she needed to be back on solid ground before delving into the juicy details. "You worked so hard to make it there and meet them."

"I think I miss home," Stephanie said, voice cracking at the end of the sentence when her voice hitched. "I miss you, and my parents there, and Dusty. I miss my bedroom, and my car, and everyone here's really nice, but they're strangers. I don't know them at all."

"Yeah, but you have to try."

"I am, but I don't feel comfortable right now."

Nicki sighed, and Stephanie could almost picture her running a hand over her face in exasperation. She had chosen Nicki to be her best friend for a number of reasons, but she didn't like the thought of being judged for something that no one else she knew had been through. Until they walked in her shoes and experienced the influx of feelings that came along with the changes, they would never grasp why she was rejecting her new life. Nobody would ever get it except for her and the fragmented fraction of the populace who had been through a similar situation themselves.

"You're in Connecticut, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'm in their house," she said. "They gave me the guestroom but are already talking about how they're going to decorate my permanent bedroom this week. I was so happy to be here, but then I tried to call my dad and found out that — "

" — he got arrested," Nicki finished for her.

"How did you know?"

"It's all over the news, remember?"

"I need to be back there. I mean, I'm still mad about what they did, but they took care of me my whole life, and I can't completely turn my back on them. They're still my parents, and I still love them," Stephanie admitted. "I think I'm going to leave this place, but I'll come back later."

"How are you going to break the news to your family there?"

"I'm not."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm just going to leave, and then I'll come back later."

"You can't do that to them!" Nicki exclaimed, Stephanie cringing at her sharp tone. "How do you think that will make the McMahons feel that you dropped in on them and then ran away, like they don't even matter?"

All instinct told Stephanie to deny the accusation, but any way she sliced it, Nicki was right. She was ultimately running out on a family who had never done anything to deserve such punishment. All they had done was love and care for her the best they knew how, and she had been stolen away by no fault of their own. Stephanie couldn't expect to enter their lives and freely leave whenever she felt like it. Their family home likely wasn't fitted with a revolving door, and no sane people would be willing to let somebody in and out of their lives at the other person's own will.

Stephanie was a boomerang. No matter how hard she was slung in one direction, she would always return to her starting point. She had built a life in Minnesota, but there was a life waiting for her in Connecticut as well, and it somehow didn't seem fair to have to choose. Her heart was with The McMahons, but it was also with her family back home, and the stress of being pulled so harshly in two extremely different directions was taking its toll. Stephanie lowered onto her bottom in the center of the floor and dropped her chin between her knees as a mournful sob rattled through her body.

"Nic...Nick..." Stephanie cried, struggling just to get her friend's name out and failing each time. She couldn't catch her breath long enough to form a full sentence, let alone a single word, and it wasn't long before the urgent knocking came at her door. It was Linda, sounding small and panicked, and that was when Stephanie knew her wails could be heard through the door. She hated to think she was scaring Linda, but she couldn't plaster a smile on her face when that wasn't how she was feeling inside.

"It's okay," Nicki comforted from her end. The urgency in her voice over Stephanie's breakdown came through loud and clear. "I know it's scary. You don't know those people, and your surroundings are new to you, but they _are_ your family, and you should at least try to get to know them."

"I can't...do...this," she wept, covering her face with her hand. Linda's knocks from the other side of the door rained down with more force, and her pleas grew louder as she begged Stephanie to unlock the door.

"I know it's hard. Where are you right now?" Nicki asked.

"A bedroom. They're...knocking," Stephanie explained, hiccups interrupting her speech and taking over where the bulk of her tears had left off. She thought to wipe her face and at least try to disguise her tears, but the effort seemed fruitless knowing Linda had been standing outside the door listening to her wailing cries.

"Go answer the door."

"Do I hang up with you?" she asked, looking to Nicki for all the answers she lacked.

"If you need me to stay on the line, I will, but if you want to hang up and call me back after you talk with them, that's okay, too," she replied. "You can call me no matter how late it is, okay? Even if it's the middle of the night, call if you need me. That's what best friends are for, so don't hesitate, no matter what."

"Okay," Stephanie wiped at her eyes, "I'll hang up for a little while."

"I'll talk to you in a bit then. Make sure you call me back before you go to bed. I want to at least make sure you're okay."

"I will. Bye."

"Bye, and no more crying," Nicki ordered.

Stephanie almost smiled at her friend's declaration, but her mouth was unwilling to make the proper movement. She lowered the phone and disconnected the call, shifting onto her knees. Pushing off of the palm of her left hand, Stephanie rose to a standing position, giving Linda credit for not letting up. Her knocking was still as persistent as before, and a few new voices had been thrust into the mix, indicating the rest of the family was aware she was having some sort of emotional collapse. It was embarrassing, to say the least, even though the logical part of her brain told her not to be ashamed.

She didn't want her family's first impression of her to be that she was some sort of nutcase. They wouldn't understand if she sulked around their house for the entire week, but some feelings were too raw to keep boxed in. Replacing her phone on the table lining the wall, she reached a shaky right hand out to turn the lock, twisting the knob and pulling the door open to find her entire family huddled in the hallway. Their eyes lit up at the sight of her, expressions quickly turning sour when they found her cheeks flushed and eyes rimmed deep red.

Linda, who was closest, reached out to Stephanie first and pulled her into a warm hug. She stroked Stephanie's hair, clutching her as if she could disappear at any moment, which was understandable considering the way Stephanie had been ripped from them so many years before. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be held because, quite frankly, it felt good to be comforted. Her head lay nodded off on Linda's shoulder for an indeterminate amount of time, and when Linda pulled away, she led Stephanie back into the bedroom to have a seat atop the massive bed. Vince sat on the opposite side of her and latched onto her hand, while Shane knelt down in front. Marissa hung back near the door.

"I'm a bad person," Stephanie said.

"What in the world would make you say something like that, honey?" Linda questioned. She cupped her cheek, squinting and tipping her head while she awaited a response.

"Because I was thinking of sneaking out of here a little bit ago," she admitted. "I called my best friend from back home and she talked me out of it, but if I were a good person, my mind never would have gone there in the first place. I'm terrible, and I don't blame you guys if you all hate me now."

Linda looked into her eyes, gaze unwavering as her lips set in a determined line. "I love you unconditionally, no matter what you do. You're my daughter, and nothing in this world will ever change that. This is scary for me and your father, and we have plenty of years on you, so if we're feeling that way, then I _know_ you have to be terrified. If you'll let us help, then we want to do that."

"But I went through so much trouble to come see you guys," Stephanie said, rubbing her eyes with the side of her index finger. "Why would I do all of that and then start thinking of ways to sneak out of here and go back to Minnesota? I don't even understand my own thoughts."

"It's because you miss what you know," Shane supplied. All eyes shifted to him as he took over. "All you've ever known are the people you have in Minnesota, and even if you know they were wrong about taking you, your life with them is all you relate to. I can see why you would have wanted to go home, but we want to spend time with you, too. They're not the only ones who care about you," he said, and Stephanie thought she detected a slight air of jealousy in his voice. She probably needed to hear it, because it made her feel wanted and lifted her spirits.

"I still feel so confused. I came here because I wanted to be with you guys, but I miss my other parents, too," Stephanie admitted. Linda nodded, holding her hand and stroking the top of it. "I want to have both of you in my life, but I don't see how that can happen. I don't think it's fair that I have to choose."

"That's where you're wrong," Vince cut in. "You don't have to choose. We're here for you no matter what, and we don't expect you to suddenly stop loving the people who took you. They're the ones you've known all your life as your parents, and I'm sure you love them. All I can ask is that you tell us before you leave our home. We'll understand if you need to go and visit for a few days, but if you leave here and we have no clue where you are, it'll crush us. Just please let us know where you're going before you disappear."

"I will," Stephanie promised. She bit her top lip as her eyes flooded with a wave of fresh tears, and Linda brushed them away as they fell. "I really _do_ love you all. I don't want you to think I don't care about you, because I do. I want to be close to you, and I know it'll take some time, but it's going to be worth it. I just miss some people back home."

"I don't want you to be sad," Linda said, eyes growing heavy under the weight of the busy night. "What is it that you need from us to make you feel better?"

"I want all of you to come to Minnesota with me."

"We would be more than happy to fly you there," Vince agreed. "Do you think you can sleep here with us tonight and fly there in the morning, or do you need to go right now? If you're ready to leave now, we'll understand, so don't be afraid to be honest."

Stephanie gazed around the room, from her parents, to her brother, to her brother's wife. Those were the faces she would come so accustomed to in the near future, and she wanted them to accompany her on what would be one of the most important missions of her life. She would have to see Gregory off to jail and then do the same for Melissa when it came time for her to be released from the hospital. Dusty was also waiting for her, probably sitting on the rug in her bedroom anticipating her return. Then there was Nicki, one of the best friends she had ever made, and Stephanie wanted to experience the best of both worlds and have everyone she loved surrounding her, even if the gathering was only temporary.

"I can sleep here," Stephanie said. It was only one night, and not even a full one, since dawn couldn't have been too far away. Suddenly, a craving for another hot drink hit her, and she couldn't help but make her request known. "Do you guys have any hot chocolate?"

There was a collective sigh of relief in the room, everyone letting their guards down and enjoying a laugh. Hearing Stephanie speak so casually gave them the hope they needed to survive the night. Shane stood and started towards the doorway. "We've definitely got some. I'll go make you a cup. Marshmallows?"

"Lots, please," she smiled.

"All right then, one cup of hot chocolate with loads of marshmallows, coming up," Shane said, backtracking to squeeze her shoulder before leaving the room, with Marissa following close behind.

"I'm sorry if I freaked you out with my crying," Stephanie apologized. "I didn't mean to worry you. I was just feeling really alone, and even though I expected my parents to go to jail, I was really hurt to find out my dad was already taken there. My life right now feels more like a movie than reality, and I just want it to calm down."

"It'll get better," Vince patted her leg while Linda squeezed her hand.

"It sure will," Linda spoke up. "We know things are hard and you'll have your days where you want everyone to leave you alone, but I hope you can rest assured that we're always here for you no matter what. You've grown up so much, but, in the end, you're still the same baby girl I first held in my arms all those years ago in the hospital. I want to be in your life."

"It makes me feel better to hear that, because I want you in my life, too," Stephanie said. It felt good to say the words aloud and truly mean them. Vince and Linda leaned in at the same time to hug her, and she settled in, accepting each of their embraces simultaneously. They broke apart only when Shane returned with her drink, and they all sat around getting to know one another while huddled around Stephanie's bed.

The future felt promising.

The first person she summoned after arriving in town was Nicki. It was a given that Stephanie would have wanted her best friend around during the first face-to-face confrontation she would have with Gregory and Melissa. The day was overcast, marking a solemnity on the afternoon that couldn't easily be ignored, but Stephanie was determined to make things work. The McMahons were kind enough to accompany her on the trip, so the least she could do was appear cheerful for the opportunity, even if she was down on the inside.

They traveled the icy streets of Moorhead in style, a classy black limousine transporting them everywhere they needed to go. Stephanie had called Nicki beforehand to let her know what time to expect them, and she'd had to explain to her packed house, still filled with out-of-town family members visiting for the holidays, that she was leaving to be there for Stephanie. Stephanie led the introductions as soon as Nicki climbed in, and the McMahons had taken to her right away, probably because it genuinely interested them to meet someone their daughter had ended up befriending in her separate life. Stephanie's background, aside from what she admitted to, remained a mystery, and they likely wanted a deeper view into who she had grown to be.

When their mellow ride halted in front of the hospital, the McMahons explained that they would feel more comfortable with waiting for her in the vehicle. They couldn't predict how they would react seeing the person who had stolen their daughter, so they chose to play it safe and not thrust themselves into such a slimy situation. Stephanie made her rounds in the vehicle, hugging each of them briefly before alighting from the car and pulling Nicki along by her wrist. They slipped inside the automatic doors, hair flying awry when they were briefly hit by the breeze from the overhead fan.

"You scared the shit out of me last night," Nicki admitted.

"I'm sorry," Stephanie cringed.

"You don't need to apologize. I wasn't saying it because of that," she explained. "I just felt so helpless, because I wanted to make you feel better, but there wasn't all that much I could do. It was hard to hear you crying like that and not be able to do a damn thing about it."

"I was fine until I found out my dad was in jail and then things went crazy. I think I sort of freaked Vince and Linda out. I felt pretty bad about it."

"You shouldn't. I'm sure they understand."

"They do. They had a talk with me and made me feel better," Stephanie recalled as they continued down the hallway, attempting to track the nurse's station and find the whereabouts of Melissa. They shifted themselves into a single-file line when a nurse turned the corner and wheeled a patient with a balloon attached to their wheelchair towards the front doors. The nurse smiled kindly at Stephanie, and Nicki regained her place by Stephanie's side after they passed. "They talked to me, I had some hot chocolate, I called you back, and then I went to bed. Then, when I woke up this morning, they made me breakfast and took me on their private jet to get here."

"Your family is rich."

"They're definitely very well off. You should see their house," Stephanie said dreamily. She was thankful Nicki knew her well enough to know she wasn't bragging about her experiences and was only trying to give the latest details.

"I want to come visit you there."

"You should!" Stephanie exclaimed. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you stayed in their house for a while. They're even letting me bring Dusty back there with me, so I'm stopping at the house to get her today. I still have my house key on the keychain in my purse."

"I don't know how the bills there are going to be paid if both of your parents are being arrested, so you should probably get all your personal stuff out before it gets foreclosed on or something."

"I will," she replied, veering off to the left when she caught sight of the first station. Stephanie waited patiently behind a middle-aged couple, tapping her foot absently against the tiled floor as she bit her nails. She never bit her nails, so the act was a true testament to her anxiety. When the people ahead were helped, she stepped up to the desk, finding a fresh faced 20-something woman smiling and ready to serve her needs. "Hi. I need to find the room number of Melissa Crandall."

"Sure," Nurse Cott, as inscribed on her name tag, answered. "May I ask your relation to the patient, please?"

"She's my...mom," Stephanie replied, still finding it hard to refer to her in such a manner. All she could do was take the changes in her life one step at a time, and the rest would follow. Nurse Cott did some typing on the computer, a frown indenting her forehead as her eyes did a rapid skim of the screen. She cleared her throat, shifting uncomfortably in her stance and meeting Stephanie's eyes once more.

"Can you take a seat and I'll be back with you in one more moment?"

"Is something wrong?"

"I just need to check on some more details for the patient before I can release any information," she said, punctuating her sentence with a smile that didn't quite ring true. Stephanie could recognize a false emotion from a mile away, and Nurse Cott's was full of disingenuity, although her intentions seemed noble.

"Okay, I'll wait," Stephanie agreed, allowing herself to be led by Nicki to a row of awaiting chairs. The only sounds to be heard were distant voices down twisting hallways and the steady clop of shoes as they met the polished floors, be it slow or rushed, thudding or light. Stephanie honed in on Nurse Cott, who was typing away on the computer while she held the phone in between her ear and shoulder and spoke briskly to whomever was on the opposite end.

"They're probably not going to let you see her," Nicki said. Stephanie's head shot over as her face twisted into a bitter scowl.

"Why would you say that?"

"I'm not trying to be mean, but she attempted suicide. They're probably keeping her away from the general hospital population, and they might not want her to have visitors."

"I don't want to jump to conclusions," Stephanie reasoned. "Let's just wait and see."

She waited. Waited and watched. Sure enough, when Nurse Cott beckoned her back to the station, Stephanie was told that Melissa had been treated and place in a 5150 psychiatric hold, an involuntary confinement that made it legally possible for the hospital to detain her for 72 hours to ensure she didn't harm herself or anybody else. While she couldn't say she was wounded or even surprised by such an admission, Stephanie couldn't walk away without seeing Melissa. There was unfinished business and a flood of unspoken words she needed to get off of her chest. The way she saw it, having a word with Melissa would be like therapy to her soul.

"I can't see her at all?" Stephanie repeated, a pleading edge to her tone. "She can't have _any_ visitors, even if it's her daughter?"

"I'm really sorry, ma'am, but visitation with family and friends can be denied if a qualified medical professional sees fit to prevent it, and her visiting rights have been revoked."

"When should I come back?"

"That status probably won't change today, but try us again tomorrow and we can let you know. It's better to call first before making a trip here," Nurse Cott explained. Stephanie's shoulders drooped as she scampered away, silent and dejected, and Nicki thanked the nurse before jogging to catch up. All she could do was slip her arm around Stephanie's shoulders, giving her a reliable person to lean on as they exited the building together.

The hits just kept on coming.


	12. The Scar That Makes You Whole

A/N: This story is getting _so_ much fun to write! I'd like to thank those of you who added this to your alerts list the last time around, and also, a big thanks to those of you who are continuing to read this. It means a lot.

* * *

"Hot guy alert!" Nicki waltzed into Stephanie's bedroom and joined her on the oval rug in the center of the floor, where Stephanie was cuddled up to a content Dusty.

A few unpacked boxes remained in the corner of her room, filled with belongings she had removed from her old bedroom in Minnesota. She hadn't had much time to grab her things and get out, but she made it a point to take all of the important items, since there was no telling what would become of Gregory's and Melissa's home, in each of their extended absences. Vince and Linda had made good on their promise and flown Nicki in to stay with Stephanie for a while, likely until the remainder of Christmas break fizzled out and she had to return to school back home. Stephanie had to constantly remind herself that she needed to enroll in a school in Connecticut to finish out her nursing training, but it would have to wait until after the new year.

She couldn't wholeheartedly focus on much of anything after the sort of trip she had had to Minnesota, and especially after leaving the hospital. As if it wasn't bad enough that she had been turned away from visiting Melissa, Stephanie had shown up to the county jail and been told Gregory specifically requested no visitors, including his own daughter. The incident was perhaps the first time in her life that her heart had broken for _herself_, into a million fragmented pieces. He had stolen her, used her for his own selfish agenda, and then tossed her away, without even allowing her to confront him for what he had done. It hurt worse than any amount of physical pain she could ever be forced to endure.

"Are you even listening to me?" Nicki nudged Stephanie's arm with her elbow, effectively snapping her from her mental haze. Her chestnut hair pooled around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes brimmed with a perky excitement from behind her rectangular framed glasses.

"Huh?"

"There's a super hot guy down there with your dad. He's one of the wrestlers, I think."

"Which one?"

"He's a WCW guy," Nicki replied. "I heard them talking, and Vince is trying to get him to flip and join his company instead of staying with WCW."

"Is it working?" Stephanie wondered.

"Kinda seems like it."

"What are you guys gossiping about in here?" Shane stepped into frame and leaned in Stephanie's doorway, crossing his arms as he grinned between the two of them. He owned his own home with Marissa and usually spent his non-work days there, but Linda had told Stephanie he was staying closer to their house to spend time with and get to know her. Having missed out on years with his only sibling, there was plenty of excluded time and opportunity Shane hoped to make up. Stephanie appreciated his gracious efforts and returned them by reaching out to him as often as she could, although Marissa seemed suspiciously standoffish.

"Hey, Shane," Stephanie greeted. Nicki had only been staying with them for a couple of days, but it was more than enough time to help Stephanie ease into the transition of getting to know her family. She was already feeling much more adjusted than she had on her first evening in the McMahon household. "Is there a guy talking to our dad downstairs?"

"You mean Chris Jericho?" Shane asked.

"It's Chris Jericho?" Stephanie perked up, eyes gaining an extra twinkle.

"Do I detect some personal interest?" he raised an eyebrow and strolled farther into her room, standing tall above her and Nicki, with a Cheshire grin spreading like wildfire across his face. "You like the guy?"

"He's a good wrestler," Stephanie shrugged.

"He's a _great_ wrestler," Shane agreed. He lowered himself to the floor, crossing his legs in front. "Did you know you actually started watching wrestling when you turned three?"

"I did?"

"You did," he nodded. "I used to try to watch by myself, but you were always coming into my room back then, and you would walk in and stand by my bed while I watched."

"I was probably so annoying," Stephanie wrinkled her nose.

"Nah, I didn't think you were annoying," Shane said, laughing when she raised an eyebrow to challenge him. "All right, fine, maybe _some_ of the time I thought you were, but, for the most part, I liked having you around. I used to pick you up and put you on my bed, and you'd watch with me. When wrestling came on, that was the only time you would actually sit still and have some sort of an attention span. That's why it's going to be great when you start working with us at our corporate offices. You were made for this business."

"But she's a nurse," Nicki cut in, Stephanie glaring her to silence before she could say anything more.

Nicki's sheepish form shrank inside itself as she mouthed a frantic apology to Stephanie and looked away. She hadn't meant to spill the beans, because it was well-known that Stephanie didn't want her family to know she had no intentions of working for them. Her heart was in the nursing industry, and that was what she had worked so diligently to accomplish with her academics. There was a clear career path set out before her, and she had no intentions of turning her back on it. How that would sit with the McMahons was a whole different story, and she didn't want to delve into that territory with them until she found a delicate way to express her plans. Unfortunately, Nicki had already done the dirty work for her.

Shane's crinkled brow formed a V in the space where his nose and forehead met, and his eyes darted between hers and Nicki's so many times that Stephanie lost count. He was trying to read her and figure out what truth, if any, there was to what Nicki had said. From what Stephanie could tell, it seemed to be the common assumption amongst her family that she was going to share the same profession as them and work in the family business, but she wasn't entirely sure she was cut out for it. Sure, there were parts of the wrestling business that may have coursed through her blood, simply because of the family she was born into, but, in her time away, she had established a love for what she did in the medical world.

"You're already a nurse?" Shane asked. "I thought you said you were still in school back home."

"Well, I still have another semester left before I'm supposed to graduate, but, yeah, I'm in nursing school and planning on being a registered nurse when I get out," Stephanie admitted. Shane's face dropped and, suddenly, she wanted to say anything to dispel the disappointment on his face. "I'm open to changing fields, though. I mean, if you guys want me working with you, we can talk about it and see what we come up with."

His relief was instant, and each wrinkle in his brow flattened into smooth skin as his mouth eased into a smile and he patted her shoulder. "Yeah, I'm sure nursing is cool and everything, but you'll have way more fun with us. This is what you were meant to do."

"Yeah," Stephanie nodded, forcing a smile and sneaking a wide-eyed glance at Nicki before her thoughts wandered back to what was taking place downstairs.

In the short time she had been living in the McMahon home, it wasn't unheard of to see wrestlers cutting through the living room and being led up to Vince's home office. Their home was grounds for work-related meetings and contract signings, and Stephanie was made a fan all over again watching it unfold before her very eyes. She was lucky enough to receive a real glimpse into the behind-the-scenes dealings of the wrestling business and, even as a casual fan, it was a wonderful treat to behold. The thought crossed her mind to sneak down the stairs and see if she could catch at least the tail-end of Vince's meeting, but she wasn't sure interruptions of any kind were allowed.

Shane had become her knowledge base for all things involving family life, and anytime she needed an answer, she went to him. "So, Shane, does our dad get mad if we interrupt him during a meeting?"

"At me, yes. At you, no," he laughed. "With me, I know better than to walk in when he's in the middle of business, but he would be a lot more lenient with you, because he's finally got you back after all these years. You can pretty much do no wrong in this house."

"Even throw a party without asking?" she quipped.

"Maybe not that, but you know what I'm trying to say," Shane laughed. "Want to go downstairs and spy on his meeting with Jericho?"

Stephanie exchanged glances with Nicki and smirked. "Actually, yeah. Let's do it."

Hanging out with Shane was akin to sneaking around with a best friend during a sleepover. He had just the right touch of playfulness in his personality to make fun out of anything, regardless of the situation. Even after only knowing him for a matter of days, Stephanie felt as if they had never been separated to begin with, and it eased her mind every time she thought back to home and wondered what was going on there. Through the great big wall of chaos, Shane was becoming one of the few constants she could depend on in her new life, and his role as her big brother was one that nobody else could ever replace.

Stephanie and Nicki pressed their hands to their mouths, trying valiantly to stifle their laughter as they spied on Vince from around the corner. There was a home library connected to the den Vince and Chris were occupying, and Shane had retreated to a chair in the far corner of the room, pretending to read a book in case Vince heard them and came barreling around the corner. That way, he would be able to play it off and act as if he wasn't guilty in the matter, while Stephanie and Nicki wouldn't suffer any repercussions at all, because there was no way Vince was punishing his daughter or her very best friend. Shane smirked when Stephanie physically moved Nicki out of the way so she could get a better look into the den.

The first conclusion she arrived at was that television hadn't done Chris a bit of justice, because he was much more handsome in person than the camera shots of him on WCW Nitro had advertised. His eyes were a piercing shade of blue and played nicely off of his bleached blond hair and healthy tan. Stephanie was mesmerized from the point she laid eyes on him, and if his attractive face hadn't completely taken her, surely his muscular build would have. Nicki poked Stephanie's back from behind, but she blindly swatted her away and tucked some unruly hair behind her ear, her longing gaze trailing Chris's chiseled biceps all the way down to the ripped set of abs showing through his skin-tight shirt.

When finished admiring the view, Stephanie guided her exploratory eyes back up to Chris's face to begin the swooning process all over again, but was shocked to find his electric blue eyes trained directly on her. Vince stopped speaking mid-sentence when he noticed that Chris was distracted, turning around to seek the source of his distraction, only to find Stephanie peeking around the corner. She stood in a stunned silence, not sure whether to rush away or wait for them to find some other source of entertainment, but her halted breathing flooded into a waterfall of relief when Vince smiled and waved her inside. "Come on in here, princess."

"I didn't mean to interrupt," Stephanie crept in guarded, with arms folded across her upper torso. "I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," Vince said. He patted the spot beside him on the couch, and Stephanie took a seat, leaning into his gentle touch when he slipped his arm around her shoulders. He leaned in to whisper, "You don't mind if I call you princess, do you?"

"No, of course not," she replied. "I like it."

"That was my nickname for you when you were little."

"Oh," she said, frowning as she tried to recall a time long ago when her father may have called her by such a name. All details before age five or six were fuzzy, though, and she couldn't manage to recover a specific memory to confirm what Vince was telling her. He must have recognized the sheer concentration on her face, because she found him beaming when she broke away from her overtaking thoughts, and she sent him a shy smile, glancing across the room at Chris. "Hi. I watch you on TV all of the time. You're really great at what you do."

"Thanks," Chris grinned. "That's a very big compliment."

"Chris," Vince announced, "I'm sure you've heard at least a few of the details in the news as to what's been going on, but this is my daughter, Stephanie. Stephanie, this is Chris Jericho, as I'm assuming you know."

"He's really good, and so funny on the shows. You _have_ to hire him," she rushed out.

Vince tossed his head back and laughed that signature, gruff cackle of his, pulling her even closer and using the crown of her head as a temporary resting spot for his chin. When Stephanie caught Chris's eye from across the room, he winked at her, his silent show of appreciation for her efforts in going to bat for him. She nearly melted, biting her upper lip and making a conscious effort not to allow her cheeks to flush. Still, she felt them burning with heat seconds later and knew she had been caught.

"You seem to have gotten a seal of approval here," Vince pointed out.

Chris chuckled and ran a hand over his hair. "Yeah, and coming from a McMahon, it's huge praise. I know I've said this already, but I really appreciate that you took the time to meet with me, Vince. I'm sure the past week hasn't been easy for your family, but I'm really happy to be here."

"I always keep my commitments," Vince answered, morphing back into business mode just that quickly. "I think we've just about discussed everything today. You're not free of your WCW contract until summertime, so today was more of a meeting than anything else, since it's only the end of December. What I want is to get you back in here in April and, by that point, I'll have a legal contract written up for you, with all of the things we talked about today set in stone. You'll have time to look it over and sign it if you agree to the terms, and we'll bring you in to debut next year, around August. Is there anything else you would like to cover today that we didn't get to?"

Chris glanced down at some papers in his hands and skimmed over them for a moment. "Uh...I think I pretty much asked all of the questions I had, so I'm good. Will I need to get in touch with your people come April, or will they be the ones calling me?"

"We'll call you ourselves, set a date and time, and you'll come back here to read and sign the actual contract. Now that I know your expectations, I'll be able to tailor the contract to your specific needs."

"All right," he clapped his hands, "that sounds great then."

"Very good," Vince released his hold on Stephanie to cross the room and shake Chris's hand firmly in his own. "You seem like a good fit for the company, and I look forward to doing business with you in the future."

"I look forward to it as well," Chris expressed. "It's been very nice meeting you," he told Vince, shifting his eyes to the young woman sitting behind him. "It was very nice meeting you, too, Stephanie."

"You as well," she stood and extended her hand to him. As she released her grip, the phone in the next room rang and, seconds after being answered, Shane was summoning Vince, telling him there was a call waiting for him on hold in his office. Vince was flustered for a moment, not knowing whether to walk Chris out first or come back for him after taking the call. If someone was calling his home phone, however, that meant their reason for contacting him was urgent, so accepting the call won out.

"I'm sorry, Chris. I've got to run, but Stephanie can show you to the door," Vince offered. "You don't mind doing that, do you? If you'd rather, I can grab Shane and have him do the honors."

"No, it's okay, I'm fine with it," Stephanie said. She was awarded a kiss on the cheek before he rushed out of the room, and she smiled at Chris, wordlessly beckoning him with her finger and requesting that he follow close behind. When cutting back through the library room she had first entered from, both Shane and Nicki were nowhere to be found, and she thought it odd, but she trudged onward. Tossing a glance behind her, she asked, "Did you park your car in the driveway or inside the garage?"

"In the driveway," Chris said, adding, "I didn't know Vince's personal garage was an option."

"Oh, well, I don't know if it normally is, but I've seen him let his guests do it when it's snowing out," Stephanie explained, taking Chris through the kitchen and past yet another sitting room, meant for enjoying light snacks and lounging. In the short time she had been living there, she had grown quite accustomed to where everything was located, be it the rooms or household supplies. Crazily enough, it was beginning to feel like home. "I've only been living here for like four days, though, so what do I really know?"

"You seem to be doing well," Chris complimented.

"Thanks, I'm trying. I sort of had a breakdown my first night here," Stephanie said, regretting the words the instant they rushed out of her mouth. Chris was a nice guy, that much was clear, but he was still a stranger and not someone she should have been confiding in with such private information. After the initial alarm rubbed off, she reflected inward and wondered why it was she felt comfortable enough to divulge such a thing to begin with. He put her more at ease than most people did upon first meeting them.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he responded. "I hope things get better, but I know they will. You've just got to stay positive."

They reached the front door and Stephanie grabbed her coat from the hanger near the door, rushing into it and sliding the zipper all the way up. It was a frigidly cold day in Connecticut, so she grabbed her gloves as well, not knowing how much time she would be spending outside. "Thanks for being so nice. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," he smiled, having slipped his coat on at the same time as her. Stephanie disengaged the locked bolt and turned the handle, pushing the door open and stepping out onto the front porch. The first wave of air that hit her successfully threw her for a loop, and she began rubbing her arms to draw heat from the friction. "You can go back inside if you want to. My car's just right there," he said, pointing to it in the driveway.

"It's fine, I'll wait."

He nodded, reaching into his pocket and producing a set of car keys. Chris tossed them lowly a couple of times in his hands, jingling them absently and heading towards the first set of stairs leading to the driveway, but he paused abruptly, spinning back around. "Was it terrifying?"

Stephanie took a couple of steps forward, snow crunching under her boots and sticking in the grooves outlining the bottom. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her coat and leaned forward, thinking she had heard him wrong. "Sorry, what?"

"I know it's none of my business, but I'm just curious," Chris said. A rosy pink hue began spreading across his cheeks and down the bridge of his nose, and Stephanie imagined her face mirrored the same shade, being that the cold didn't typically agree with her sensitive skin. A few brave rays of sun peeked out from behind the mass of clouds in the sky and brightened what was otherwise a drab day. "Were you scared?"

"Honestly, I still am," Stephanie admitted. Her words were accompanied by cloud puffs, as the water vapor from her exhales condensed in front of her face. Chris's eyes grew keen with interest, begging her to expand on her answer, so she did. "I didn't find out until a matter of several days ago that the parents I had known all of my life had kidnapped me. I didn't know what to think, except that I had to find out who my real parents were and meet them."

"How did you know you were related to Vince and Linda?"

"The people who took me kept articles about my kidnapping, and I stumbled across them, so that was how I found out my real name was Stephanie McMahon."

"What did they tell you your name was?"

"Jennifer Crandall."

"Wow," Chris muttered, astounded.

"Yeah, it's crazy. Beyond crazy, actually," she said, cheeks growing numb from the brutal winter freeze. "I drove here most of the way, and a bunch of crazy stuff happened on my trip here, but when I got in town, I couldn't think of a way to find out where exactly my parents lived. I knew they were connected to the WWF, so I tossed a huge rock through the window at their headquarters, because I knew they would drive down to see what was going on and I could meet them that way."

"So _that's_ why the glass was shattered. Wow."

"Like something out of a movie, isn't it?"

"Yeah, so surreal," he said. "Are you living here from now on?"

"Until I figure my life out and get my own place, yeah," she replied. "I was in school for nursing, but I'm going to try to transfer to a nursing program here. I don't think it's all that easy to do that on such short notice, but I'm just going to see what happens. If I need to take some time off before going back, I will."

"Being a nurse is hard work. You must be one intelligent woman."

"Thanks, I like to think so," Stephanie smiled. "Helping people is what I love to do. I had a stethoscope when I was a little girl, and if my family members got sick, I would nurse them back to health. I was only a first or second grader, and I would walk around trying to make people better."

"Sounds like you were meant to do that. Do you have memories of being kidnapped?"

"Nope."

"So you don't ever remember a time living with Vince and Linda up until this point?"

"Nope," she shook her head. "My earliest memory is of a birthday party my other parents had for me, and it was when I was turning four. I had already been with them for almost a year by the time that took place, and it's the only memory I can come up with from that early on."

"I'm so sorry this happened to you," Chris sympathized, eyes heavy with sorrow. "You deserve so much better than that."

"It's okay, but thank you for your sentiments. I'm just trying to take everything one day at a time," she replied. Chris trained his eyes on something behind her and, when Stephanie turned back to check, Shane was standing at the door and peeking his head out.

"Stephanie, we need you back in here! They have the results of the DNA test you took at the police station!" he shouted soundly. She called back that she would be right there and turned around to smile at Chris.

"I have to go, but it's been really nice talking with you. Thanks for showing me so much support."

"You're welcome," Chris said. "And thanks for vouching for me in there. You might have swayed Vince enough that he decided to hire me for sure when April comes."

"It was no problem," she said, struggling with how to close the conversation without making Chris feel as if she were cutting him off prematurely. "All right, so, I've got to get inside, but good luck with your job and everything. I'll probably see you sometime again when you come back in April. Enjoy the rest of your day."

"Thanks, you too. Go get inside where it's warm," he suggested. Chris sent her a dazzling smile before scurrying off to his car. Stephanie remained on the steps, waiting until he turned his car on, backed out of the driveway, and sent her a final wave, before she retreated back up the set of marble steps and inside the house. Her mind shifted back into business mode as she spied her entire family huddled around the main phone, waiting for her to join them so the end results could be read aloud.

"You ready?" Nicki asked, seated on the outskirts of the McMahons but equally as eager to find out what was waiting ahead. Stephanie took a deep breath, crossed the room, and knelt down between Vince and Linda, offering a single-word response to continue the proceedings.

"Ready."


End file.
